Team GB at the World Athletics Relays

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

Not a great first leg from Amo-Dadzie but he didn't look settled going into the race and was still messing round with his blocks long after everyone else.

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

 mixed 4x400 drawn in heat 3 for tomorrow against      

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

Good news is that  4x400 safely qualifies. The bad news is that Nielsen wasn't able to get ahead of  Mawdsley in the final leg despite the fact that the Irish woman had competed in the mixed relay a couple of hours ago. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

That was a bit 'meh' from the guys - Davey was very lucky that the gap opened up on the inside.  Seeing quite a few of our guys getting into messy positions on the track and having to fight their way out. 

[Epic Failure 364]

59 minutes ago, Rafa Maciel said:

Good news is that  4x400 safely qualifies. The bad news is that Nielsen wasn't able to get ahead of  Mawdsley in the final leg despite the fact that the Irish woman had competed in the mixed relay a couple of hours ago. 

Mawdsley's PB is about half a second quicker than Lina's, so it probably wasn't a shock. The big moment from that from a GBR point of view was Yeargin's leg of 50.23.

 

Considering that you could make an argument that we have 3 runners who could improve that team - Anning, Pipi and Laviai - it was a good run by GBR.

[Epic Failure 364]

6 minutes ago, Rafa Maciel said:

That was a bit 'meh' from the guys - Davey was very lucky that the gap opened up on the inside.  Seeing quite a few of our guys getting into messy positions on the track and having to fight their way out. 

Disagree. Davey was smart. Everyone else charged off and died. Even if the gap on the inside hadn't opened he had room to move out.

 

That was always the weakest of our 5 teams. Both Dobson and Young would be with MHS and Davey in the first choice team of those selected today (both AHW and Brier would be on past form but neither were selected today). Getting the job done was the only thing that mattered and they did that.

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

3 minutes ago, Epic Failure said:

Disagree. Davey was smart. Everyone else charged off and died. Even if the gap on the inside hadn't opened he had room to move out.

 

That was always the weakest of our 5 teams. Both Dobson and Young would be with MHS and Davey in the first choice team of those selected today (both AHW and Brier would be on past form but neither were selected today). Getting the job done was the only thing that mattered and they did that.

I don't think it would be so easy for him to move out on the back straight For the first 10-15 metres, he was boxed in by the Dutch and the Kenyan with the Qatari in front. His only path to the outside would have been to get between the Qatari and the Dutchman and he wouldn't have been able to do that without impeding on or other of them until they were in the last 10-20 metres of the race. 

 

But as you say, all that really mattered was getting in to the top two. 

[Epic Failure 364]

20 minutes ago, Rafa Maciel said:

I don't think it would be so easy for him to move out on the back straight For the first 10-15 metres, he was boxed in by the Dutch and the Kenyan with the Qatari in front. His only path to the outside would have been to get between the Qatari and the Dutchman and he wouldn't have been able to do that without impeding on or other of them until they were in the last 10-20 metres of the race. 

 

But as you say, all that really mattered was getting in to the top two. 

I've just rewatched it and I still think he would have been fine. The Kenyan starts dying as soon as they hit the home straight. Bonavacia not long after. Then the Qatari. Davey is the only one who is actually accelerating on that home stretch. Room opens up quickly in those scenarios.

 

Basically there was always going to be a gap on one side of the Qatari. Had he not left the gap on the inside that Davey took, there would have been a bigger gap on the outside between him and Bonavacia.

 

The only way Davey wasn't likely to find a gap in my opinion is if Bonavacia hadn't died. And even then I think he would probably have been fine with judicious use of elbows.

 

The biggest 'risk' he took was assuming that they were all going to die coming home. That was a chance. But it was a sound choice in the end. That's 4x4 relays for you!

[RussB 189]

5 hours ago, Epic Failure said:

Disagree. Davey was smart. Everyone else charged off and died. Even if the gap on the inside hadn't opened he had room to move out.

 

That was always the weakest of our 5 teams. Both Dobson and Young would be with MHS and Davey in the first choice team of those selected today (both AHW and Brier would be on past form but neither were selected today). Getting the job done was the only thing that mattered and they did that.

I’m not sure I agree on the top 4 at the moment.

MHS and Dobson would seem pencilled in but beyond that Young was really bad today and we didn’t see Haydock Wilson. I was also impressed with Toby Harris today doing a 45.2 to get us to the front while Matt died a bit at the end of his leg.

[Epic Failure 364]

8 hours ago, RussB said:

I’m not sure I agree on the top 4 at the moment.

MHS and Dobson would seem pencilled in but beyond that Young was really bad today and we didn’t see Haydock Wilson. I was also impressed with Toby Harris today doing a 45.2 to get us to the front while Matt died a bit at the end of his leg.

The top 4 I was referring to was based on the best time individually over the last year coming *into* the competition, not how well they ran here or a prediction about who should be the top 4 moving forward. 

 

I don't know why we didn't see Brier or AHW but once they decided not to pick them, the guys selected were the best on time, in theory.

 

My point was that the men's 4x4 is not blessed with an excess of talent right now. We had to split our expected resources between the mixed and the men's.

 

I was just saying that in the circumstances that was a solid run and about as good as we could have expected.