Epic Failure

So round up of GBR athletes of note so far this weekend. These are *far* from the only GBR athletes competing - these were the ones that stood out to me, either as good times or athletes who might be in contention for Paris or Rome this summer: LA 400m - Ohuruogu - 51.67 1500m - Fogg - 3:35.82 800m - Wightman - 1:44.10 (OQT), Botterill 1:45.91, Langford 1:46.18 1500m - Snowden - 4:00.89 (OQT) (last night) 800m - Sharman-Newell - 1:45.5 3000m SC - Bird - 9.32.95 3000m SC - Seddon - 8:20.77 (PB) 5000m - Atkin - 12:54.66 (PB, OQT) 5000m - Nuttall - 14:57.91 (PB) Wetzler 100m - Edoburen - 10.24 (+1.0) 100m - Henry - 11.44 (+1.4) Chorzow 100m - NMB - 10.25 (+0.1) 100m - Lansiquot - 11.24 (-0.1) 200m - NMB - 20.54 (+0.8) Quainoo 20.84 200m - Hunt - 22.85 (0.0) 400m - La Nielsen - 51.47, Pipi 52.77 800m - Baker 2:00.16 1500m - Reekie - 4:02.57 400m H - Li Nielsen - 54.73 (=PB, OQT) Shot - Lincoln - 20.75 Andujar 100m - Efoloko - 10.35 (+0.4), Morgan-Harrison 10.41 800m - G Bell - 1:59.93 (PB) Gotzis Day 1 Pawlett - 3820pts - 13.64 (PB) - 1.71 - 14.39 (PB) - 23.55 (PB) Smith - 3607pts - 13:38 (PB)- 1.77 - 11.89 - 24.39 (PB) Mills - 3216pts - 14.82 - 1.68 - 12.86 - 25.94 Highgate - Night of the 10000m PBs Paddy Dever finished second in 27:23.88. He has the British QT from March but faces an anxious wait to see if he will get a quota spot and, if he did, whether UK Athletics would accept it. Could fall foul of the "current form" criteria, as that indicates athletes have to perform in April-June this year. Will hopefully at least have a place in Rome for the Euros, as could a couple of the guys behind him such as Rory Leonard and Charlie Hicks. On the women's side, no such drama. Megan Keith won the race in 31:03.02. She already had the OQT from March, but this satisfies the 'current form' criteria. So she's on the train to Paris if she wants to be. Jess Warner-Judd behind her has a more anxious wait. She's in a quota spot and has the GBR Q from last year. But, like Dever, might fall foul of the 'current form' stipulation. And breathe....that's enough for today.

Shriever had a poor start but was then badly baulked by Pajon going down right in front of her. It killed any momentum she had. Even still, she was still in with a shout of 4th on the final straight but overcooked it. But she was only about 2-3m behind the group when she went down, not 10m!

The Rankings. 1 place will go here to the highest placed NOC who doesn't already qualify through the rankings, or who hasn't qualified at one of the continental champs/last year's WC.

The discussion about the B cut vs 'relay only' is an interesting one. I can see both sides of the argument. I get that it seems unfair for one B cut to be allowed to take part and others not. But she'll be there for the relay anyway, so it's not like she would be depriving anyone of a place. But then the 'relay only' designation means nothing if you start letting people in who don't have the Q. It's a tough one. Just another example of the sometimes perplexing and sometimes frustrating qualification systems for the Olympics!

Another solid bouldering round by Erin and Hamish. Hamish had 2 tops and sits 4th with 64.6. Erin had 3 tops and sits 6th with 84.6. The question is whether they can match that performance in lead. Molly had a tougher day and sits 14th with 43.4. She'll hope for a better time in lead. Lead section starts in about an hour. Top 8 get through to the final.

I doubt DAS will do the 400m relay. Unless she's fallen out with the 4x1 team then that would clash with the women's 4x4. And the mixed clashes with the 100m. Given Dina's injury issues in recent years, it's probably a bit too risky.

Worthington just doesn't look confident compared to her best. Whether it is a fitness thing or something psychological, something just seems...off.

It's definitely 2 per nation max. I think someone asked about this earlier, but I don't think Reilly can double qualify us. If I'm reading the qualification docs correctly (not guaranteed), if Reilly qualifies by name here, the place he got at the Worlds would be reassigned to an NOC that hadn't yet qualified. I could be misreading it though, so don't quote me on that.

Well, that qualification went about as smoothly as could be hoped.

I mean, I'm currently munching my way through an entire pack of Cadbury Fingers in one sitting. I'm not sure if Daniel can do that.

Both Hessey and Jones make the final. Now we wait to see if Reilly will join them.

Not just clean runs but high scoring clean runs to beat them. Daniel Dhers is almost my age. Safe to say I can't do what he does.

Definitely at least 1 Brit through to the final already, no matter what happens from here!

Lovely first run from Hessey there.

MacDonald is fine and O'Neill is probably passable. They probably couldn't be expected to do much more But Calvert was poor. Unlike Hamish/Erin in the climbing, he has vastly under-performed compared to his ranking coming in today. That's always disappointing to see. When you add in the women's situation, it hasn't been a great couple of days. As George Orwell definitely didn't say, four wheels bad, two wheels better!

Less said about the skateboarding the better, however.

Definitely seemed a little bit unsure in the boulder. Excellent from Hamish and Erin. Both outperformed their ranking coming in quite considerably, which is all you can really ask for.

Molly's safe. Still in 16th and only 3 climbers left.

Oh, as I said earlier, without Anderson our chances are pretty much zero. Although, all that being said, we are the current world silver medalists from the definitely-not-weird Doha WCs.

It's a good thing we don't hand out Olympic finishing spots based on trials performance then, isn't it? Also, Summer was 2.5s quicker than Colbert was, not 1.5. Again, for the avoidance of doubt, I'm not saying that I'm favouring GBR over Canada. But I also do not believe that - if both teams are on form in Paris - the gap will be 5 seconds. I would not be surprised if it were around 1.5 seconds, however.

Hence the "slightly further ahead than I thought" part of my last comment... The collective PBs of those 4 Canadians is about 1.5 seconds ahead of the PBs of the likely GBR quartet in Paris. So definitely a gap but hardly a crazy one. Obviously, if Oleksiak or Ruck were to get back to something close to their best, that gap would considerably widen.

My bad, I was looking at the changes made on 15th April and thinking that was yesterday. Only a month out.

The Dutch will go all out on the mixed medley. Their men aren't that strong, so that is a much better bet for them than either the men's 4x4 or the individual 400 is. The women have more time to rest. Bol would have a first round the day after if she does the hurdles rather than the flat 400m, but frankly she could jog around that and still qualify. The US are likely to field a "less than first choice' team, but the team that they field is still likely to be strong enough to win gold. I don't think Poland's men are good enough at the moment. If GBR were go full bore at the mixed, I think they, the Dutch and the US would be the guaranteed medalists, in one order or another. I'm not sure that any other country has the depth to match them. The question is just going to be whether GBR does that, or whether they believe that a slightly weakened team might still be good enough to challenge for the podium and that by doing so they might increase chances elsewhere in the individual events (thinking MHS as the most likely, given his recent championship performances). Basically, the question becomes can we persuade our athletes to adopt a James-Guy-in-Tokyo mentality? Obviously all this is subject to form/fitness. If Anning doesn't carry her college form through the summer, our chances are diminished a chunk I reckon, even with the depth on the women's side.

AHW ran today in at Montreuil. 45.76. The men are bronze medalists from the Worlds last year, so they absolutely should be in the medal conversation. Not to the same extent as the women, but they are definitely in with a respectable shot. What we need on the men's side is a couple of guys in the 45 lows. Not close enough that they qualify in the individual 400m but not far away so that they are still providing respectable relay splits.

Have the Canadian Selectors pulled a selector trick today and amended their selection policy halfway through the Champs?