Epic Failure

Mondo will pay the price for his lack of vision.

50 is probably the bottom line expectation. Anything above 70 would be crazy. That being said, I'm waiting for us to start falling again. We've had a good run of summer games but the pessimist in me believes it can't last forever. As long as we never reach Atlanta levels, I'm good.

Order 66 is about the only way to stop Mondo. See how he would fare vaulting with the 501st firing at him...

I mean, obviously some degree of guesswork, but let's take the 4th and 5th fastest US runners on SB right now. For the women this year that's Aaliyah Butler (SB 49.79) and Isabella Whittaker (SB 50.17). For the men, that's Christopher Bailey (SB 44.42) and Johnnie Blockburger (SB 44.51) All 8 athletes (both ours and theirs) SB are also PB. Our top 4 beats that team by about 0.15s on SB/PB. The presence of Rai Benjamin and SML in the US list skews things slightly, as I strongly doubt either of them will be in the mixed. But even still, that makes it the 3rd and 4th best US this year basically being the equal of our best. Their depth is terrifying. I'm obviously oversimplifying because that doesn't take into account the fact that some people are better relay runners than others. The US aside, a full strength Jamaican team on full PB form would beat us although that relies on them being on that form *and* choosing to do that mixed relay. I doubt they will. Bahamas the same.

1 and 2 are definitely fixable, albeit not guaranteed. Eilish clearly just needs more miles in her legs. Whether she can get it in time for Paris is very debateable but the problem is pretty easy. She was saying coming into Rome that she was surprised that she was ahead of schedule. She did 5k yesterday, which would on its own be 10th in Britain on time. KJT is the same. You would hope that this was nothing more than an attempted cobweb blowing, so to speak. She realised that she wasn't at top form and if she did have a niggle, there's just no point in risking Paris even 1% for the Euros. Obv with the hept there is always the jeopardy of injury but certainly nothing to worry about right now. Jemma's kick will be less important in the 800m unless both Keely and Mu are injured. Because one of them will be trying to grind the others down. The only time it would be a problem would be if everyone lets Moraa dictate the tempo. It probably still won't be enough for Jemma but I'm not sure there's much more she can do. The relay is immediately fixable with something closer to a first team out - Azu and Hughes would be nailed on the first 2 legs. What the make up of the others is remains to be seen, but there's a perfectly likely possibility that none of the 4 in Rome will even be in the Paris squad. Jessie just looks past her best. Hopefully she'll prove me wrong, but no disgrace if she is. It happens to us all sooner or later.

Apologies, my lack of proof reading meant I said something I didn't intend. I meant to say that "that doesn't mean our athletes believe that their best chance of gold is the mixed relay". I'm sure they believe that they can/should medal and I'm sure they believe that they have a decent chance of gold. But MHS surely believes the same about his individual slot. The others maybe less so, but can they win without him? I'm not sure. I guess I'm just not as convinced as you that them going all in on the mixed is statistically more likely. Prior to 2022, sure, I'd agree. But MHS is absolutely a serious gold medal contender. Arguably right now he's the favourite.

I don't think anyone doubts that we have a good chance of a medal in the mixed 4x4 with our best team out. But that doesn't mean the athletes believe that, or believe that it is worth hurting their individual chances. Maybe they will have a different view going into Paris. But it's clear that these champs were always something of a test event and therefore were always likely to be a relative let down from a GBR point of view. I mean, just look at the list of people we're missing, all of whom are in the top 3/4 of an event in GBR this season, for one reason or another: Azu Hinchliffe Prescod Hughes NMB MHS Young Pattison Kerr Wightman Atkin Lansiquot Anning John Gill Muir KJT (effectively) That list includes many of both our individual medalists at the last 2 worlds, and many of our prospective relay teams. Then consider the athletes who might not be quite at their best because they are worried about trials, or who took a casual approach here ie only did one event when they might double in Paris etc. Finally, we're never going to be a country who wins masses of golds. And even if we put out our top 4 in the mixed, the US would almost certainly still beat it if they did the same.

What's Neita done to offend people?

Molly, sure. She's established, a world finalist and won the WIC in Glasgow. Gold was always well within her grasp. But Megan is still a relatively inexperienced athlete - that was only her 3rd ever 10000m. Also, 10000m is a race that lots of athletes don't do that often, so her place at the top of the rankings was always something of a false position. Van Es, for example, has run 10k on the roads quicker than Megan's track PB, but that isn't shown in the PBs at the start of the race. Megan did the right thing, she tried to run the kick out of the other two. She wasn't able to. It happens.

I suspect Megan will be pretty happy with her bronze to be honest.

Tamberi is a nutter. Bless him.

Wait, people care about the playoffs once their team is eliminated? I've barely watched any games since the regular season was over. That said, a small part of me would find it hilarious if Edmonton never won the cup after they got so many years of draft luck. So, Go Panthers, I guess.

They've got it wrong in on the men's side as well - it should be Rafa and Murray but they have Stan and Murray. I think they've just been selecting the two highest ranked GS/Olympic winners, not looking at the criteria. Unless they are already adjusting for protected rankings, but if that is the case, Rafa should be showing as Q. Which he isn't.

Alex Seftel, Phil Minshull and Tim Hutchings are the main commentary guys. It's technically just the Eurovision feed commentary, so not something to specifically blame the Beeb for. For the most part I'm fine with them, and tend to prefer them to the Beeb's own commentary team (bar Crammy). It's a bit 'chummy' but it works most of the time. Kath Merry and Jaz Sawyers have both been excellent when they've shown up this week. The only redeeming feature of Jaz being injured is that we get her in commentary. She's a natural.

I'd have Jemma slightly ahead of Sekgodiso because Jemma has shown over several years that she can run 1:56-1:57 times, including 2 1:57s this year. Sekgodiso has only run that 1:57 time once. She may well be capable of much more. But she hasn't backed that up, yet.

A mixed day, but mostly because of athletes expectations rather than actual poor performances. Both Caudrey and Dobson would have fancied their chances of gold. But both still performed creditably - indeed Charlie's time is the 7th fastest by a European ever. He just was facing the 2nd fastest European performance of all time! Both he and Doom were world class and could easily get into medal contention in Paris if they can hold their form. Molly will be more disappointed, but a good close competition might help her more in Paris than a procession could have. She was very close on the second attempt at 4.83m. She's still a solid medal threat in Paris. In other news, good qualification by Neita, Lina N, Keely and Gourley, amongst others. Laviai lowered her PB again, which shows consistency and will hopefully help the relay in Paris. Anna Purchase and Mark Pearce performed about as well as can be expected.

Don't get me started...UKA are a joke of a governing body right now.

Whatever ranking she ends up with, you can probably bump it up by one. As I doubt UKA will take Anna Purchase unless she goes a couple of metres further before the window closes than she has this season.

I mean, she's 4th in the last Olympics and 5th in the last WC (and is world #4 this year). It would be a huge shock if she missed Paris. Also, if Keely and Phoebe ended up 1 and 2 at trials, Jemma would absolutely get the 3rd slot. It would be bonkers to give it to anyone else.

Sub 49. Wowsers.

Charlie met his Doom...Great race from both of them. Bonevacia annoying me by showing up here after messing up the mixed relay earlier in the week.

Molinarolo misses at 4.73, so our medalists are set. Order to be determined.

Obviously form etc is never a guarantee, but Keely, Jemma and Phoebe are a cut about the rest right now - there's over a second gap between Phoebe and Erin Wallace in terms of SBs and you would expect Phoebe to take it out hard. If she does, only Jemma and Keely can go with her, unless Alex Bell gets her 2021 form back. I'd be surprised if the Paris trio isn't Keely, Jemma and Phoebe, unless one of them is dramatically off form or suffers misfortune in Manchester.

If it were an 800m race, I'd be more worried about Jemma. But she was never going to run 1500m in Paris. So it's a lesson learned and a bruised ego but nothing more.

As much as I love Dina, she will have done well if she finals in the Olympics. Aside from Eugene in 2022 she hasn't really been a factor in global finals since Doha in 2019. I think if we're expecting individual medals from her that's putting unreasonable pressure on her at this stage in her career. Jemma was leading because nobody else wanted to. She kept leaving the gap but nobody wanted to take the option up. The more I think about it, the more we should credit Mageean more than anything. She is the class of the field in terms of pure 1500m running - her PB is 3 seconds quicker over 1500m than Jemma, and she's been working on her 800m this year (set a NR last month). She got her tactics spot on. It wasn't ever slow enough to be a complete 800m kickers race. And class won out.