Athletics (General Discussion)

Warholm shocker of a race.
Lyles wins the 200m but not quicker than his semi final, definitely seemed more tense. Tebogo only 4th.
 
Eric_the_Red99 said:
Amy Hunt could be a dark horse for a medal in the 200m. Was the third fastest qualifier for the final, setting a PB. She has some serious finishing speed.
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Hunt does brilliantly to chase down the silver in the 200m final. Jefferson-Wooden gets gold to complete the sprint double.

GB women should do well in the 4X100 relay.
 
Got to feel sorry for Zharnel Hughes there. 19.78 out in lane 8 and places fifth.

Also Tebogo, 19.65 not good enough even for bronze.

Just a ridiculously stacked 200m.
 
LDUred said:
Got to feel sorry for Zharnel Hughes there. 19.78 out in lane 8 and places fifth.

Also Tebogo, 19.65 not good enough even for bronze.

Just a ridiculously stacked 200m.
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Yeah apparently would have medalled in any other Worlds
 
Eric_the_Red99 said:
Hunt does brilliantly to chase down the silver in the 200m final. Jefferson-Wooden gets gold to complete the sprint double.

GB women should do well in the 4X100 relay.
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People will say could she have pushed MJW if she started better but still think silver is over achieving
 
USA out of the men's 4X400. What a shocker. They've dominated that event for 20 years.
 
Salt Bailly said:
Jamaican men feck up a changeover in the 4x100m relay. Out of the competition.
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So did we, GB will be even more gutted with no Jamaica. Glad that Rutherford called out the W 4×400m failing to qualify unlike the other two on panel
 
Wow, KJT is the joint bronze medalist with Brooks in the heptathlon after they end up with exactly the same points total. Never seen that before.
 
Incredible 800m final. Thought Wanyonhi had messed that up as he looked in trouble with 100m to go but he’s so strong.
 
Eric_the_Red99 said:
Wow, KJT is the joint bronze medalist with Brooks in the heptathlon after they end up with exactly the same points total. Never seen that before.
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I'm legit stunned how a scoring system that gets you to 6000+ points in a sport with 7 disciplines doesn't have a tie-breaker in this situation, and if it does and they've still come to the same, that's pretty insane.

Good on KJT though. Keeps churning away, keeps getting rewarded for that.
 
Zen said:
I'm legit stunned how a scoring system that gets you to 6000+ points in a sport with 7 disciplines doesn't have a tie-breaker in this situation, and if it does and they've still come to the same, that's pretty insane.

Good on KJT though. Keeps churning away, keeps getting rewarded for that.
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I often wonder how accurately measured the field events are. For most of the athletes the javelin was skimming off the grass.
 
Dan said:
I often wonder how accurately measured the field events are. For most of the athletes the javelin was skimming off the grass.
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At one point they showed one landing form the viewpoint of the judges on the grass and it was much clearer where the initial point of contact was, even for the skimmers.
 
That was horrendous from Amo-Dadzie. He really out ran Efoloko and made the hand off impossible.

Frustrating as the quartet weren't under that much pressure in terms of the race position.
 
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Hodgkinson beaten for Gold as well when she seemed to be cruising. Sums up the week for GB
 
I think that was a team effort from Kenya
First Moraa got the two brits running to get them to tire at the end when the winner came storming past
Pity
 
Hocker a man possessed again.

Preparation injuries for Keely and Jakub made today's feel less special. But fair play to the times on the 800m women and that kick from Hocker after his DQ.
 
Looks like the Manchester rain has made its way to Tokyo. This relay is going to be fun.
 
There it was.

Nice to a see a bit of vintage Niekerk then, great leg from him.
 
That relay pretty much summed up the championships for GB. Incredibly disappointing. Three silver and two bronze is a dreadful return for all the millions of pounds of Lottery funding they get.
 
That was a disappointing 4 x 100m by the British women.
 
Eric_the_Red99 said:
That relay pretty much summed up the championships for GB. Incredibly disappointing. Three silver and two bronze is a dreadful return for all the millions of pounds of Lottery funding they get.
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The funding is less than you’d think and considering this is one bad athletics championships in the last few years where we’ve performed well and medalled indoor, outdoor and at Olympics and World Champs I am likely to think of it as a one-off disappointment than a general trend.

The bigger issue actually is a lack of funding - not sending developmental athletes to championships and getting that experience
 
Great success for the US team and not at all good for GB
 
Eric_the_Red99 said:
That relay pretty much summed up the championships for GB. Incredibly disappointing. Three silver and two bronze is a dreadful return for all the millions of pounds of Lottery funding they get.
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Apparently worst games since Paris 03, the field events is diabolical as haven't even qualified for most. We have probably produced 3 elite ones in last 30 years.
 
croadyman said:
Apparently worst games since Paris 03, the field events is diabolical as haven't even qualified for most. We have probably produced 3 elite ones in last 30 years.
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We reap what we sow.

In field events over the past five years we’ve had plenty of athletes who have been ranked inside the worlds top 10-20 and have been invited to world championships or olympics only for British Athletics to reject the invite because they didn’t reach the A Standard.

If you don’t take athletes to championships and let them get experience then it all falls apart - they don’t get Diamond League invites, they miss out on high level competition, they don’t get used to championship rounds and their rivals build more and more experience

It’s been particularly poor in field events
 
Eric_the_Red99 said:
That relay pretty much summed up the championships for GB. Incredibly disappointing. Three silver and two bronze is a dreadful return for all the millions of pounds of Lottery funding they get.
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It funds a decent amount across sport in general, but athletics gets less than a tenth and the latest funding was reduced for the next Olympics which we're likely to see a downturn from.
 
Eric_the_Red99 said:
That relay pretty much summed up the championships for GB. Incredibly disappointing. Three silver and two bronze is a dreadful return for all the millions of pounds of Lottery funding they get.
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Likely to lose a significant amount of funding now I'd imagine.
 
ItDoesntEvenMata said:
We reap what we sow.

In field events over the past five years we’ve had plenty of athletes who have been ranked inside the worlds top 10-20 and have been invited to world championships or olympics only for British Athletics to reject the invite because they didn’t reach the A Standard.

If you don’t take athletes to championships and let them get experience then it all falls apart - they don’t get Diamond League invites, they miss out on high level competition, they don’t get used to championship rounds and their rivals build more and more experience

It’s been particularly poor in field events
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WOW never knew that about field events, says to me UK athletics need a complete revamp of people in charge. You just know that it's not gonna happen because no one is willing to call these championships out. Just look at the BBC panel for perfect example of that.
 
Dan said:
That was a disappointing 4 x 100m by the British women.
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They were leading at the 200m point. Just needed to avoid botching the final handover to be well placed for a final.
 
croadyman said:
WOW never knew that about field events, says to me UK athletics need a complete revamp of people in charge. You just know that it's not gonna happen because no one is willing to call these championships out. Just look at the BBC panel for perfect example of that.
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Lifted from ChatGPT who I hoped would give a full list but to no avail


These are field (throws, jumps, multi) athletes known to have met the world ranking criterion but were rejected by UKA on account of the UKA standard.

Then this is actually me - an additional 19 athletes were rejected by UKA for selection for Budapest 2023 WA Champs despite being invited. They included Phil Norman missing the standard by 0.15 seconds on the 3k steeplechase.

Now the thing is, what happens if these athletes get rejected time after time is that they stop bothering going to UK Champs, they also don’t get invited to Diamond League or top world tour events where fast times can be run and then if they do get to a champs, it’s their first time when they could have had two or three chances to develop beforehand

AthleteEventChampionship / YearWhat is known / Missed by how muchSource
Jade LallyWomen’s DiscusParis Olympics 2024Eligible by world ranking; missed UKA’s standard by ~5 cm (UKA standard: ~63.50 m; her best ~63.15 m) BBC+2The Telegraph+2
Amelia CampbellWomen’s Shot PutParis Olympics 2024Qualified via world rankings but missed UKA standard by about 64 cm(~18.67m UKA standard vs ~18.03m her best) The Telegraph+3ESPN.com+3The Telegraph+3
Anna PurchaseWomen’s Hammer ThrowParis Olympics 2024Ranked ~top‑16 globally, eligible by world ranking; missed UKA standard by ~57 cm in the qualification window. The Telegraph+2BBC+2
Kenneth IkejiMen’s Hammer ThrowParis Olympics 2024Eligible by world ranking; not selected under UKA policy because didn’t meet UKA standard. ESPN.com+1
Jake NorrisMen’s Hammer ThrowParis Olympics 2024Same as Ikeji: world ranking eligible, but declined by UKA due to missing UKA standard. ESPN.com+2The Telegraph+2
 
croadyman said:
WOW never knew that about field events, says to me UK athletics need a complete revamp of people in charge. You just know that it's not gonna happen because no one is willing to call these championships out. Just look at the BBC panel for perfect example of that.
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I also think it’s a question of looking at these champs for what they are: one championship with various mitigating factors (outside of the relays which were disastrous). Kerr, Hodgkinson, Caudery and Smith were probably our four best shots at gold or chances of medalling. One spent all year injured and the others got injured during the event. Old guard stars like Muir have also struggled with injury all year and just made it to qualify.

Paris was a success, World Indoors was a success, Europeans were a success, Budapest 2023 was our most successful world championship ever.

Sometimes athletes mess up and it doesn’t go to plan (or other athletes are having their moment and it displaces them). In a game of fine margins, a few instances of that across events makes it look like there’s some massive problem when it’s just a few fine margin calls falling the wrong way in isolation.

Much like with United, if there’s an inquiry to be had at this point then I would be pointing that inquiry at the back room of UKA. At the policy makers, selectors and general model of supporting athletes rather than overreacting to a set of performances from athletes who have routinely overdelivered for a nation of our size on the international stage
 
Duplantis is just an unreal polevaulter.

First broke the polevaulting world record in 2020, a record that stood for six years and has only been broken once since 1994. He's now broken his own record 13 times in five years.

Bubka, who first broke the WR in 1984 at 5.85m and finally in 1994 at 6.14 (which stood for 20 years) broke it 35 times in 10 years, moving it 29cm in that period.

Duplantis has moved it 13 cm in six years. Four times in the past year.

Besides Duplantis, Lavilennie has had one jump better than Bubka's 1994 record back in 2014 and no one else has come close to the old record.
 
ItDoesntEvenMata said:
Much like with United, if there’s an inquiry to be had at this point then I would be pointing that inquiry at the back room of UKA. At the policy makers, selectors and general model of supporting athletes rather than overreacting to a set of performances from athletes who have routinely overdelivered for a nation of our size on the international stage
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I agree that this championships can be seen as a one-off, as you said we've come off a very successful Olympics and other recent events were good. Also, the WC's after the Olympics tend to be bad historically.

I'm not sure about UKA though. We should obviously review, but in reality funding is too small and is the reason we put extra criteria on athletes to compete. I think we're probably going to go through one of those phases where we win less, and eventually funding gets increased again. It's gone down year-on-year since London, and for the entire Olympic cycle to 2028 is sat at £20,450,000. That includes paying athletes, equipment, transport and everything else. £5,000,000 a year really isn't that much in sport.

In defence of UK Sport, they prioritise where success can happen, and athletics is difficult to get to the top.

Edit - athletics is below swimming, cycling, rowing & sailing which says a lot about where we are expecting to do well.

https://www.uksport.gov.uk/our-work/investing-in-sport/current-funding-awards
 
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