Athletics 2022 Discussion Thread

[Makedonas 1,584]

17 yo Anastasia Antonopoulou withdrew from the upcoming World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships due to "personal reasons regarding the protocols set by the organisers." I guess that's another way of saying "they are requiring vaccination and I am unvaccinated" ?

[Triplecast 114]

Maggie Ewen at USA indoor championships in SP has done a 19.79 WL PB.

[Makedonas 1,584]

Some highlights from the Greek Indoor Championships:

Karalis and Tentoglou were the two big stars. Both won their titles quite easily. Karalis was chasing the Greek indoor record (5.85) and had some good tries at 5.86 but couldn't clear the bar. His first attempt especially was very close. He has been close to 5.86 many times lately, I think soon he will clear it. After a few years of his progress stalling, he seems healthy again and ready to take it to the next level. He has consistently been clearing 5.75/5.80 lately and he is still just 22 years old.

 

Tentoglou only did 3 or 4 jumps. His best was 8.20. He didn't seem happy with it, although that would still probably be enough to win a medal at the upcoming World Indoor Championships. Still far from his best, although his injury seems to be gone which is an important sign.

 

Irini Vasiliou (who ran 400m in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020) made her 2022 debut. However, she did not compete in the 400m. Instead, she ran 800m for the first time in her life. She ended up winning the title with 2:10.94. Obviously that time is nothing special, but the level in this event was quite low so with some stronger competitors racing against her, I'm sure she'd improve that time by several seconds. She's already 31 yo (almost 32) so this is strange, although she said she will compete in 400m at the upcoming World Indoors (she already has the standard from last year). She originally said she would retire after Tokyo, then she said she would retire after Belgrade, but somehow I feel like she will keep postponing her retirement until Paris . Perhaps she wants to test her limits in 800m and see how well she can do.

 

21 yo Artemis Anastasiou is a nice surprise this season. She improved her PB in the 60m from 7.75 in 2020, to 7.60 in 2021, to now 7.41 in 2022. Quite impressive to see, and suddenly we might have a good chance of qualifying a women's 4x100 relay to Paris. Spanoudaki won the title with 7.23 and seems confident that she can run under 7.20 in Belgrade.

 

In the men's high jump, 18 yo Grigorios Chasos won the title with 2.19, a U20WL. His previous PB was 2.12 from a few weeks ago, and before that his PB was 2.07 from May 2021. Quite a remarkable improvement. He also had some good attempts at 2.22, but couldn't clear the bar.

 

The big disappointment of the day was the women's pole vault competition. A 17 yo (Alina-Amalia Florou-Dimitriadou) won the title with 3.95. A good result for her age, but quite sad that 3.95 was enough for the title. Stefanidi and Kyriakopoulou did not compete, and Polak started from 4.15 and had three missed attempts. It was a huge shock and she was crying afterwards. A few of our other pole vaulters did not compete (two are studying in the United States and doing the indoor season there, others are skipping the indoor season), so it's pretty crazy that Greece is one of the strongest nations in this event with a lot of depth, but couldn't get anyone above 4m in the national championships 

[Jinzha 529]

Highlight of the Dutch indoor championships were the 400m races, with notable times from: Femke Bol 50.30 (PB, NR, WL), Lieke Klaver 51.20 (PB) and on the mens side Liemarvin Bonevacia 45.48 (PB, NR). After the indoor championships 4 men and 3 women have run an individual qualifying time for the indoor world championship. I love that our 400m runners have really been improving together as a unit!

 

In other news:

Nadine Visser got injured during the 60mH (in a leading position), Zoe Sedney won in 7,98.

18 yo Nketia Seedo won the womens 60m in 7,25

Jessica Schilder won the shot put with 19,35m (NR). It's officially a NR, but unofficially she has thrown 19,72m already.

[phelps 6,867]

At the Italian Indoor Nationals in Ancona, Marcell Jacobs won the men's 60m in a modest (for his recent standards) 6.55, followed by Giovanni Galbieri in 6.62...

pretty disappointing race, to say the least...

 

In the women's 60m, instead, Zeynab Dosso improved herself once again and this time finally got the new Italian Record all by herself: 7.16 her new best mark...

 

pretty disappointing competition also in the men's shot put, with Nick Ponzio winning in 21.34m and both Leonardo Fabbri (national record holder) and Zane Weir (5th at the last Olympics) below the 21m mark...

 

most exciting race of the championships, for sure the women's 800m, with Gaia Sabbatini imposing herself over Elena Bellò after a tough battle (2.01.07 vs 2.01.45)...

 

p.s. Gianmarco Tamberi (men's high jump Olympic Champion) wasn't at the start after his appearance at the Celebrity Game of the NBA All Star Weekend 8 days ago...

 

in the meantime, at the Naples Half Marathon, Yemane Crippa won the race and set the new Italian record over the distance in 59 mins and 26 secs, first Italian runner to go under the 60 min-mark and second best European clocking in the history of the Half Marathon behind the 59:13 by the Swiss Julien Wanders, who got beaten badly in today's race -he was 7th with 60:28)...

[Grassmarket 2,757]

Final Event in the World Indoor Tour coming up tomorrow from Madrid.

 

https://www.worldathletics.org/competitions/world-athletics-indoor-tour/news/villa-de-madrid-2022-rojas

[SalamAkhi 278]

French Indoor Champs : ...

French Athletics at home in 2024 : ...

[Makedonas 1,584]

On 2/25/2022 at 8:14 PM, Makedonas said:

17 yo Anastasia Antonopoulou withdrew from the upcoming World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships due to "personal reasons regarding the protocols set by the organisers." I guess that's another way of saying "they are requiring vaccination and I am unvaccinated" ?

Our three-time Olympian Alexandros Papamichail cannot compete and has to return to Greece. He only received one dose of vaccination (he didn't get the second one yet) but has proof of Covid infection which they thought would be enough but apparently it is not. Now it has become somewhat of a scandal in Greek athletics with many people to be blamed for this mistake.

[LuizGuilherme 201]

Brazilian Spriter Paulo André Camilo is participating in Big Brother Brasil and is out of the indoor season.

 

A great choice actually, now he has millions of followers on social networks and gonna earn much more money than he recieved in his life.

 

https://instagram.com/iampauloandre?utm_medium=copy_link

[Makedonas 1,584]

5 hours ago, LuizGuilherme said:

Brazilian Spriter Paulo André Camilo is participating in Big Brother Brasil and is out of the indoor season.

 

A great choice actually, now he has millions of followers on social networks and gonna earn much more money than he recieved in his life.

 

https://instagram.com/iampauloandre?utm_medium=copy_link

Best of luck to him!

 

Similar to Greece where a lot of our athletes compete on Survivor in recent years. Our sprinter Katerina Dalaka actually won the show a couple years ago. Actually, she competed on the show for two seasons so she basically gave up any chance she had on qualifying for Tokyo to make money and attract sponsors. She is our most followed female athlete besides Sakkari. She has never qualified for the Olympics (I think she has a chance for 4x100 in Paris), and has more followers than our Olympic gold medal winners (Korakaki and Stefanidi).

 

https://www.instagram.com/katerina_dalaka/

https://www.worldathletics.org/athletes/greece/katerina-dalaka-14376933

 

Now this steeplechase runner is the newest contestant: https://www.worldathletics.org/athletes/greece/stavroula-chrisaidi-14535408

On the show they introduced her as a "bronze European champion" which I guess is how they tried to exaggerate her bronze at the Balkan Youth Championships in 2013 

 

A Greek wrestler (who competed in Tokyo and won gold at the World U23 Championships last year) also competed this season, and so did a female rower who has won medals at the World U23 and European U23 Championships a few years ago. It worked for Dalaka I guess (although her results regressed while she wasn't training properly), and now this trend seems to have been happening not only in Greece but also in Brazil.

 

Also we had a taekwondo athlete compete in Greece's Next Top Model a few years ago. Then she returned to the national team afterwards.

https://www.instagram.com/jo_desylla/