Epic Failure

When? In Gwangju? They really didn't. Also, speaking about things isn't the same as protesting at a competition. If you are talking about recent events, James Guy and Adam Peaty spoke out, but Peaty's comments were as much a criticism of World Aquatics as anything. Either way, all of those things, bar Scott in 2019, are a long way from protesting every interview or every podium, as you are suggesting is going to happen this summer.

I mean Duncan Scott did his podium protest against Sun Yang in Gwangju. But that's the only one I can remember. Certainly isn't a record of mass protests or anything like that.

The placing table all week has had 49 events listed, which would include the team events. I was surprised at that as well, given the history. But I'm not complaining, given the ability to bump our total.

It keeps changing. I swear a minute or two ago the Spanish and German medals were showing. And now they've disappeared as well!

The medal table is now showing all the team medals except our gold. I'm beginning to think the web admin is holding a grudge against us...

A good day today for sure. Silver for Mills was always his limit unless Jakob had done a Belgium and fallen into the water jump by mistake somehow. Glave might on another day have got higher up but certainly no disgrace in either performance or time. Lincoln will be frustrated that he couldn't translate his circuit distances into a championship performance, but 4th place in that field is creditable anyway. Both Sember and Fincham-Dukes would have had to pull out career best performances to get any higher. No disgrace there. Callum Wilkinson was another creditable performance in the walk. O'Dowda likely sealed an Olympic place with her PB in the Hept. All in all, the positive definitely outweighed the negatives today. Meanwhile, in Oregon, Amber Anning finished 3rd in the NCAAs in 49.59, as well as running a 50.3 opening leg in the 4x400m (and also anchoring the 4x100 team!)

GB in men's basketball won 1 game by 30 pts (vs China) and lost by 1 pt to the silver medalists Spain. Our women lost all their games but even they were competitive. Now our handball teams, they *were* outclassed.

Pakistan lost to Zimbabwe in the last T20 world cup. Go and look at that Zimbabwe team and tell me how many of them would get in a combined team. Hell, go back to the 2007 50-over WC and do the same with Ireland and that Pakistan team. There's a real difference between acknowledging that Indian money greatly influences the ICC and thinking that means that they are dictating the results in some kind of Machiavellian plot. If that was the case, why did they wait until 2024 to do it? And, again, why wouldn't they spend the money to bribe one of the US tv networks to cover the game? That would be more effective in getting eyes on the product. Sometimes the most simple explanation can be the right one. And the simplest explanation is that Pakistan are notorious for being inconsistent.

A magnificent 7 from Sandra.

I did wonder if Mills might have turned up in a ginger wig and a skirt, just to freak Jakob out a bit.

He was always the overwhelming favourite, but the 5k runners had one shot to beat him, which was to take it out much harder. They have played even more into the 1500 runners in the field.

So, Jakob is definitely winning this with this early (lack of) pace.

2022 was a non-Olympic Euros, so you can't really compare the two. But even with a stronger team in Munich, at the same point in 2022 we only had 2 bronze medals.

I'd like to lobby for the introduction of 4th place medals. Definitely not for any parochial reasons, no sir.

Jade O'Dowda finishes on a PB of 6314, which comfortably meets the UKA Q. Should get her a quota spot in Paris, barring a bunch of crazy heptathlon performances across the next month.

Italy always have a strong team, but they are at home so I'm sure are doubly motivated to perform. Feel sorry for Melluzzo. Looks like he was most affected by the mess the first time.

Yup. At least according to WA. Pinnock has jumped 8.40 though.

That Pinnock jump had a +5.8 wind.

Other news from the NCAAs - PBs today from Finlay McLear in the 800m (1:45.66) and Sam Bennett in the high hurdles (13.45). Sam is at Howard, so he has David Oliver as his director. Not a bad role model there. My only worry about the likes of Louie, Amber et al is whether they will be able to translate NCAA form into the later part of the summer. Would be entirely reasonable if they couldn't; we've seen it happen to other before now. So I'm trying not to increase expectations too much. Obviously excited to see what happens and the level of competition should stand them in great stead moving forward anyway (a la Adeleke). Same with MHS and Charlie - with both of them having questionable injury histories, I'm worried if we stretch them too far in Paris and end up hurting our chances in multiple events (and even more so here). As much as the mixed is a real gold chance, I don't want them to risk it if it might impact their individual chances. Especially MHS - he's arguably our second most likely individual medalist after Keely. I'm expecting Carvell and Davey to be there. Davey for last year if nothing else has shown he is a reliable pair of hands. And Carvell has been rewriting his PB this year. Even his 45 mid today is a fairly solid lead off leg. If he could get that down to 45.1-45.2 that would keep us in contention in most races. With his age, that kind of improvement is possible although obviously not guaranteed. A fit Rio Mitchum would be putting his name into the hat. Not seen him all season though. I'm glad the team are disappointed. That shows they have high standard and expectations of themselves. But that doesn't mean we have to be disappointed in them. Now if I were Polish, I would be disappointed in their team...similar to us they had a mostly reserve team out but they were 1.5 seconds behind even our time. And let's not even get started on whatever is happening with French athletics this week! Multiple DQs today and their federation seeming to fail to understand what paperwork is. :D

Even if she doesn't get a Q, she's probably looking at 6300 as a bare minimum, even if she has relatively poor performances on day 2. That would put her much higher up the list in the rankings, meaning that she's almost certain to get a place in Paris that way. I reckon as long as she gets to the end of the hept with disaster (injury, no mark in LJ etc) she's probably booked her ticket one way or another.

I could go into various detail about all sorts of things that could be considered, but I'll simply say that just because something is working for Ireland here, it doesn't mean it would work for us, nor does it mean that it will necessarily work for them in Paris. Again, we're current world medalists in all 3 4x4 relays, so I would hope that we could perhaps give the athletes/coaches at least some benefit of the doubt for now that they know what they are doing. Personally, I would say that the 4 that ran today all ran pretty well. Carvell is only 19 and held his own against some top quality athletes. Newnham only turned 20 a fortnight ago. Davey and Kelly are both only 23. Whilst I think all 4 stand a chance of being in Paris in the squads, even I don't think that they would be the starting 4. So why are we getting worried about their performance anyway? These Euros, like the 2012 and 2016 Euros before them, were always secondary concerns in an Olympic year. And it is noticeable that uninspiring GBR performances at both those Euros were followed by successful Olympic performances, where we outperformed the European countries that had finished ahead of us in the Euros. Compare that to our Euro peformances in non-Olympic years where we've dominated in recent years. Now if we mess things up in Paris, sure, open season on criticism. But let's at least wait and see first.

Be nicer to Lieke!

Again, I'm not disputing that Lieke was poor by her standards. But I just don't get why you are seemingly cutting him more slack than you are her!

Just because we're not advertising our plans here doesn't mean that they don't know what the plans are. Considering that our 4x4 teams are the current WC silver medalists in the mixed and bronze in both individuals, I'd give them a bit of credit in the bank that they know what they are doing. Especially as they have Martyn Rooney guiding them. With our trials only a couple of weeks away, the way the timetable is structured here and the NCAAs happening this week, this was always going to be something of a mixed bag. Nothing to panic about.

Disagree with much of this. It's been a solid day. Nothing spectacular. But miserable and downheartening is going waaay too far for me. All 4 of our relay runners are potentially in the Paris squads. They are all relatively young and, for the most part, improving athletes. Davey is a double medalist from the WC last summer. He's not going to get dropped. They performed perfectly creditably today. This week was always about development in the relays. Hence our not taking a women's team, or putting Dobson or MHS (before he pulled out) in the men's. Reekie is here in the 1500 because, you would presume, she believes that she can win gold. She's the 3rd quickest in the field by PB and knows that if it comes down to a kick she's an overwhelming favourite. Consider that she would have to be fighting Keely in the 800 here, I can't blame her for looking for a different option! Also, Okoye finished about where you would expect in a field like that. Jade O'Dowda is likewise in a perfectly respectable 9th after day 1 of the Hept. All 3 women in the 1500m looked comfortable. Likewise Lincoln, Fincham-Dukes, Bird, Ujah and Lake in their Qs. 2 of our 3 800m men qualified, which is not bad considering that the men's 800m is absolute carnage at championships these days. The *only* real disappointments for me are KJT (which is not that surprising, especially when she has nothing really to prove or fight for here) and the women's 5000m performances from Nuttall and Neale, which were below their best by quite a way. But even that 5000m had a PB from Izzy Fry in it.