Epic Failure

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.

Yes and no. Bonevacia is a 44.5 man at his best, and should be expected to run around 45 consistently. He was 46.1 here. That's as far off his best as Lieke was.

Klaver was poor but only by her own incredibly high standards! She was still 0.3s quicker than everyone bar Adeleke on that second leg. Bonevacia was the worst of your legs, for me, by quite a way.

Adeleke demolishing Klaver on the 2nd leg was the real difference there. Excited to see what she can do on the individual.

I wouldn't assume that Ireland are *definitively* the weakest team. They look poor right now but they've been competitive for a while. It wouldn't be crazy if everyone bar India kept swapping wins in that group. But the US are definitely in the box seat. Beat Ireland and they are through for sure.

Nafi looking as majestic as ever.

Ehammer with a statement jump there.

There's only Taylor who would qualify as wholly developed by the US. But there's 4-5 of them who were born in the US and have moved around before settling back in the States. Then there are several others who moved to the US as teenagers and have been involved in the US team for a good number of years. It's nowhere near as 'mercenary' as I expected it could be.

I mean, Pakistan has a history of being upset in world cups. They are the definition of a mercurial team - can be great one day and then awful the next. Also, if they really wanted the game thrown to interest more US folks, they could have not run it as close as it was. Not to mention, they probably could have paid a better TV channel to increase the eyes on the tournament in the US. I understand what you are saying, I just think it is the latest in the line of weird Pakistan performances. And a US team motivated to perform on home soil.

It's dumb. I thought EAA was starting to be sensible with the attempt to fix things like the French entry fiasco, and then they do stupid things like this.

Since her injuries KJT has only been average at the hurdles. She only ran 13.50 in Budapest last summer on her way to the World crown.

It's a mix. Of the 15 man squad, about 8-9 are naturalised Indians, Pakistani or South Africans. Then another 4 or 5 are US born to Asian or Caribbean parents. And finally there is the Kiwi, Corey Anderson, who is probably the most famous of the squad. He married a Texan and moved there a few years back I believe.

Updated...but still out of date as there are still people showing in the entries who have withdrawn, including the Brits discussed earlier and Konstanze Klosterhalfen.

I mean the discussion was as much just talking about how do different countries do things. And I think there's some disagreement about what does or does not constitute a trial. It's all good.

Oh that makes sense. I was worried that you meant a tipping point in the 'bad' direction and I was confused!

The fact that right now it doesn't matter for many events doesn't change the fact that the system is set up to value performance at those Champs. When the policy was created the selectors don't know who is or is not going to hit what target. The only real difference between the German system - at least as you have described it - and the UK system - is that we potentially assign 2 people based on the performance from our Champs, whereas you assign only 1.

How? It's literally almost identical to the system that GBR uses.

Right, so the German Championship performance can influence it? That's basically the same as the GB system then.