Blog: johnloguk

WORLD ATHLETIC CHAMPS - OSAKA (MORE REFLECTIONS)

I've just watched 2 fantastic performances by American athletes, and some very poor tactical runs by British competitors which prompted me to post another blog.

Firstly I must declare that I am in danger of falling in love with the women's 200m champion Alysun Felix! She is still only 21 yrs of age and earlier today retained the title she won in 2005. In an event usually dominated by big physically powerful athletes, she is slightly built and a very graceful runner. When everyone else starts to tie up, grimace and struggle in the home straight, Alysun maintains an incredible balance to seemingly float away from the opposition. The 100m champion Veronica Campell was on her shoulder as they came off the bend, but Alysun kicked in the afterburner and won by over half a second, almost unprecedented in a sprint. At 21.7 seconds it was by far the fastest run of the century, and from what I can recall most of the faster times are pretty dubious. If you haven't seen Alysun run then try to watch the highlights on BBC2 tonight at 7pm, and look out for the smile at the finish, very spectacular!

There are some similarities between Alysun Felix and the man who dominates men's 400m running, Jeremy Warriner. He is also relatively lightweight physically compared to most of his rivals, but is rapidly closing in on one of the world's truly great record times, 43.17 seconds by his mentor and manager Michael Johnson. Warriner also won his race in great style and one of the fastest times in history, 43.34, yet closer to setting a new world record, maybe next year? Britain has a great history of 400m running, but at the moment we are struggling to get any guy under 45 seconds, and have never run under 44.

The GB team have had some successes in Osaka, namely Christine Ohorugu and Nicola Sanders finishing first and second in the women's 400metres. There has been some horribly ill-informed criticism of Christine because she has recently returned from a 12 month suspension following missing 3 drugs tests. Before anyone starts screaming "drugs cheat" I would ask them to check out the actual facts of her case. In my opinion she was very stupid and careless, but is certainly not a drugs cheat. One thing Christine and Nicola did was run great tactical races, which can't be said of most of our athletes at these championships.

Andy Baddeley went into the 1500 after some great runs in the lead up, but showed tactical naivity of the highest order. He only scraped through the first round when 2 guys well ahead of him fell over, and slowed down several others allowing him to sneak through. Then in the semi he did exactly the same thing again, letting the frontrunners get too far ahead of him and leaving way too much to do on the last lap. Andy is a clever guy, with a double first from Cambridge, let's hope that he learned something from those races.

I'm afraid that I've forgotten the name of our new hope in the men's 800, but he has shown great promise recently. He has also shown good tactical awareness in his races, including his first round when he finished 2nd after a very clever run. But today he let his brain out for a walk just before his semi and totally blew it. On the first bend everyone was going quite slowly, waiting for someone to take up the pace. Our guy found himself at the front, and instead of holding back and letting someone else put their head on the block, he suddenly shot off infront at a suicidal pace. The rest let him go and simply reeled him in on the final straight. He looked suitably embarrassed at the finish and was brave enough to admit his mistake in the post-run interview. One for the memory banks I reckon.

In recent days some of our other pre-championship hopes didn't come up to expectations either. Chris Tomlinson admitted to being "complacent" when failing to even make the long jump final. At least Philips Edowu has had injury problems to explain his lack lustre triple jump. But Goldie Sayers had looked so good in the javelin that it was a real shock when she didn't even make the final.

We had high hopes in the men's 4x100m relay, but we only qualified for the final 5th fastest behind Jamaica, USA, Japan and Brazil. At least we didn't drop the baton, but we might need someone else to if we're going to get a medal! Go on boys, prove me wrong.

We've already hit the pre-tournament target of 3 medals, but I think we're still a bit short of the other target of 14 finalists or top eight places. Still it is a very transitional team and Beijing is another year away.

by johnloguk on 16:43 on 31st August 2007