OlympicsFan

In case anyone didnt know: All the sessions are streamed live (+ on demand) on the IAAF Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn6opDhtHxU

True, i actually might prefer those junior competitions to the senior competitions. I think there is much less doping and the athletes seem to be a lot closer/more friendly towards each other + you see some very surprising results, for example the winner of mens high jump (who looks as if he isnt even 6 feet tall by the way -> amazing talent) improved his PB by 6 cm today, you basically never get that at senior level, so the results are much more surprising. If IAAF thinks that those athletes are too young, then maybe they could create U19 and U21 world championships instead.

The german girl was injured yesterday and still might be, i doubt that she will run close to her PB today.

What about Klosterhalfen in womens 1500 m? Not a favorite for gold?

Tortu on the entry list in mens 100/200 m? Ingebrigtsen on the entry list in mens 1500 m and mens 3000 m SC!

With his 14th stage win Kittel overtakes Erik Zabel as the most successful german rider at the Tour. Him probably winning the green jersey is a big relief, because he has been the best sprinter for a long time and deserved to win it much earlier.

Great to see your enthusiasm for the performance of a foreign athlete! Röhler and Vetter make 90 m almost seem normal ... at this point it would be really disappointing if they wouldnt finish 1-2 in London. German javelin throwers have never been that strong, amazing progression, sadly we are in a very bad spot in pretty much all other throwing events. Also 64.21 for Hussong in womens javelin throw today and 21.53 for Storl yesterday, overall i am pretty happy with the current state of german athletics, despite the "absence" of Schwanitz/C.Harting and the recent retirement of world class athletes like Heidler, Obergföll or Stahl.

How strong was the wind in womens 200 m? I think this year womens 200 m is pretty weak, 22.5 might be enought to final. How many medals can we expect? 1 in mens race walking, 1 in mens high jump, 1 in mens 100 m, any more?

EAA will offer a free live stream which is only geoblocked in Sweden, Germany and Poland. There should be some interesting events: Mens 400 m hurdles/400 m with Warholm (apparently he wants to do both) Mens shot put with Bukowiecki Mens triple jump Babayev vs. Heß Womens 100 m hurdles Herman vs. Visser Womens 100 m with Swoboda Womens 1500 m with Klosterhalfen, Judd, Hinriksdottir, Ennaoui Womens 5000 m with Can, Reh, Lahti Womens triple jump with Panturoiu, Peleteiro, Diallo And the highlight: Womens javelin throw Kolak vs. Tugsuz You cant expect many world class performances, but you will see a lot of very close (tactical) races and a lot of true joy + you dont have to ask yourself after every event (at least thats how i feel) whether the winner was doped.

What do you mean with "pretty much all other results ..."? Was the canadian team already announced? I get that McBride and Bishop didnt produce world class performances but what about the jumping events (Barber, Drouin, Nettey) and womens 200 m?

Highlights at the german championships last weekend: Womens 100 m: 11.01 in prelims (0.0) for Lückenkemper, 11.10 (-0.7), she stumbled at the start I think she is clearly in sub 11 s shape, probably 10.90, but i dont expect much at the world championships, german sprinter always crumble under pressure ... Sadly she didnt run the 200 m much this year, 2 years ago she ran 22.4 when her 100 m PB was about 0.3 s slower, so you have to wonder how close to 22.0 she could get now. http://www.leichtathletik.de/tv/video-detail/video-detail/detail/gina-lueckenkemper-rennt-der-konkurrenz-auf-und-davon/ Also interesting: 11.37 for Keshia Kwadwo (born in 1999) in 4th place, would be amazing if she would be nominated for London. Womens 200: Lückenkemper didnt compete, Mayer got injured, so the 2 best german runners didnt compete and probably wont run this distance in London. Laura Müller won in 22.65 s (-0.8) Normally she is more of a 400 m runner and she will run the 400 m at the U23 championships next week. http://www.leichtathletik.de/tv/video-detail/video-detail/detail/laura-mueller-pulverisiert-ihre-bestzeit/ Womens 1500 m: Klosterhalfen won in 3:59.54 with a solo run (more than 10 s ahead of everyone else), after an opening 400 m in 65 s ... she crushed the 40 year old championships record by almost exactly 7 s. I hope she gets into a really fast race with Hassan, Kipyegon, Muir (Dibaba, Obiri) later this season. If you can run 3:59 alone, off a 65 s opening lap at 30 °C, you can probably run 3:56 on a perfect day. http://www.leichtathletik.de/tv/video-detail/video-detail/detail/konstanze-klosterhalfen-knackt-der-meisterschaftsrekord/ Womens 110 m hurdles: 12.82 (-0.7) for Dutkiewicz, she could probably run sub 12.90 in her sleep by now ... Harrison seems too far away, but i think she has a chance to beat everyone else, lets see ... Roleder is out for the season due to injury, so she wont be able to defend her medal from 2015. http://www.leichtathletik.de/tv/video-detail/video-detail/detail/pamela-dutkiewicz-bleibt-auch-in-erfurt-ungeschlagen/ Womens triple jump: 14.40 (-0.1) for Gierisch http://www.leichtathletik.de/tv/video-detail/video-detail/detail/kristin-gierisch-packt-den-gold-sprung-aus/ Womens pole vault: 4.70 for Ryzih Mens long jump: 8.15 for Howard Mens triple jump: 17.24 (+2.1) and 17.13 (+1.0) for Heß http://www.leichtathletik.de/tv/video-detail/video-detail/detail/nervenstarker-max-hess-springt-1724-meter/ Mens pole vault: Holzdeppe only jumped 5.60 and got beaten by Bo Lita Kanda Baehre (born in 1999) http://www.leichtathletik.de/tv/video-detail/video-detail/detail/youngster-schockt-den-titelverteidiger/ Mens high jump: Przybylko jumped 2.30 (cleared everything with his first try) and tried 2.38 (new german record) twice. I think he jumped 2.30 or higher 4-5 times this season already, he should be a strong contender for a medal. http://www.leichtathletik.de/tv/video-detail/video-detail/detail/mateusz-przybylko-ist-in-der-form-seines-lebens/ Mens javelin throw: Vetter won in 89.35, he also would have won with his 2nd best (89.23) and his 3rd best (87.83) attempt. Röhler had problems with the conditions and was 2nd in 85.24, Seifert set a new PB of 84.62 and was third. http://www.leichtathletik.de/tv/video-detail/video-detail/detail/johannes-vetter-gewinnt-vor-thomas-roehler/ Probably not a world class performance, but a very nice finish by Benitz in mens 1500 m, beating Tesfaye quite easily: http://www.leichtathletik.de/tv/video-detail/video-detail/detail/timo-benitz-siegt-mit-fulminantem-endspurt/ Also interesting: Luke Campbell who won mens 400 m hurdles (49.40) has lived in the US since he was 3 and doesnt speak german ... http://www.leichtathletik.de/tv/video-detail/video-detail/detail/luke-campbell-ive-been-trying-to-chase-on-the-50-sec/

Didnt the canadian championships take place this weekend? Results? Especially mens 100 m, mens/womens 200 m, womens 400 m hurdles, womens long jump, mens high jump, mens pole vault, mens/womens 800 m would be interesting, any world class performances?

Its great that you are so into athletics ... how come? Lithuania isnt really a powerhouse, do you have any medal contenders at U18/U23?

IAAF's strategy is obvious, just wait and hope that everyone forgets ... i still wonder what actually changed in Russia? You also have to wonder if it was really and incident that the list with all the supposedly doped athletes (Jager, Farah and so on) was "stolen" recently and didnt contain a single russian athlete ... i guess this shows that all nations are equally dirty, so we can as well allow Russia to compete?

No, i followed her recent results very closely and thats also one of the reasons why i hoped that Kuchina wouldnt be allowed to compete. With the russian doping history her recent results are absolutely outrageous, she must feel untouchable. I guess she is allowed to compete? (Thanks for not answering my question by the way) Everyone who is allowed to compete in diamond league is also allowed to compete at world championships? I dont really care whether russian athletes compete for Russia or not, in the end they will all by honored by Putin if they win anything, noone will be fooled by this stupid trick, IAAF cant seriously think that everyone forgot already.

Is Kuchina allowed to compete? Hopefully not ... Is there actually any russian athlete that isnt allowed to compete? Does IAAF think that everyone forgot that the whole russian team is dirty or do they just not care what the people who finance this sport think?

Congrats, despite missing many of your best talents like Dort or Shittu. RJ Barrett ... MVP despite being 2 years younger, just insane. There is no way that he wont be drafted first in 2019. Canada has a very bright future ahead. Canada, France and Australia should play for the minor medals from 2020 on, maybe together with Croatia and Spain/Serbia.

I hope you know that that's nonsense? It's hard to believe that someone who apparently watches all stages in full could be so clueless ...

Its ok that you dont reply to anything i said, because you obviously have no clue whats going on, but then you should just keep your thoughts to yourself. You are absolutely not helping anyone with your random rants, its sad that we already got used to your misbehavings. Its probably been at least a year since the last time you actually wrote a comment that aimed at discussing something sport-related, since then you are only trying to cause trouble.

Apparently you are done with this, so you don't have to answer, but i just wanted to write one last comment about all of this: 1) I really didn't see german players jumping out of joy right after the end of the match. Do you have any video footage? In the interview afterwards they sounded rather pissed and said that they didn't know whether this result would let them advance. 2) I think that Italy could have avoided Spain in the semifinal if they would have scored one more goal, don't you think that this should have been motivation enough to score a second goal? 3) This may sound arrogant, but who do you think would Italy prefer as a possible opponent in the final: Germany or Slovakia? I think its Slovakia, so they probably didnt want Germany to advance instead of Slovakia 4) I think you could have reached the next round by just scoring one more goal, so its partly your own fault (correct me if i am wrong) 5) I think the referee of the Portugal match was from Slovakia (correct me if i am wrong) and made at least one weird decision towards the end of the match ... what about that? 6) How can you say that you were robbed/that Italy just could have scored another goal if they would have wanted to and why didnt they do it? It might be true that Germany didnt want to score a goal, because England is an easier opponent than Spain, but Italy surely had every reason to try to score another goal ... right? 7) Am i proud about this result? No. Why not? We all know that France would have won the title, if they would have taken this seriously and whoever wins the title knows that. I am surprised that Germany was able to reach the final without Tah, Ginter, Süle, Henrichs, Havertz, Sane, Brandt, Werner, Kimmich, Weigl, Huth, Can and so on, but i dont have any illusions about Germany winning the final and i dont think that Slovakia would have had a chance either, so what are we really talking about here ... ?

The level of competition at the european junior championships is clearly hurt by the absence of ALL german talents and the top british talents. Personally i am happy that the german swimming federation decided to focus on world junior championships, although it will be much tougher to win medals there, especially considering some of the crazy times coming out of the US once again. I think the highlights of the first day were womens 200 butterfly and womens 800 free, most other times were far from spectacular. US trials are always funny to watch, suddenly you have athletes like Zachary Appel, Dakota Luther or Mallory Comerford who completely destroy their PB out of nowhere. I just wish that only once a single german swimmer would show an improvement like that ... it can't be that hard, considering that there are at least half a dozen american swimmers doing it every year ...

You have to be U21 when the qualification starts. UEFA wants that the same players who play the qualification also play the final round and if you are 20 at the start of the qualification you will probably be 22 at the tournament itself. The alternative would be to start the qualification with U19 players, so at the tournament itself everyone is really under 21. But then the U19 qualification would be for 16 or 17 year olds and the U17 qualification would be for 14 or 15 year olds ...

Dont embarrass yourself ... who exactly celebrated? Germany reached the semifinal without 11 of their best players. I didnt see anyone celebrating, but if they did, they had every reason, England for sure is beatable.

German swimmers who were nominated for Rio (Koch will decide whether he will compete after the meeting in Rome this weekend): Marco Koch (200 breast) Christian vom Lehn (100 breast, medley relay) Marius Kusch (100 fly, medley relay) Marek Ulrich (100 back, medley relay) Damian Wierling (50 free, medley relay + maybe 100 free) Poul Zellmann (400 free) Florian Wellbrock (1500 free) Jacob Heidtmann (400 IM) Franziska Hentke (200 fly) Aliena Schmidtke (100 fly) Lisa Graf (200 back) Celine Rieder (800 free) I really like the fact that Schmidtke got rewarded for her recent improvements, but i dont get why Sarah Köhler and Christian Diener, who both reached the final in Rio, werent nominated. Koch, Heidtmann and Schmidtke got nominated despite missing the qualification standards. All of them, expect for Ulrich, Zellmann, Rieder and Schmidtke should be able to reach the final. Heintz should definitely win a medal, Hentke as well, if she finally manages to perform at her best at a global championships. Graf and Koch might have an outside chance for a medal. Germany will send a pretty big team to the junior world championships, but no team will be send to the junior european championships.

I am not very optimistic about this tournament, considering how many players are missing: Sane, Kimmich, Weigl, Werner, Tah, Brandt, Süle, Goretzka and Can The stars of this team should be Gnabry, Meyer and Dahoud. The only good thing is that this doesnt count as olympic qualification tournament and in 2 years Sane, Brandt, Werner, Tah, Dahoud, Henrichs, Amiri, Havertz, Klostermann and Kehrer all will still be allowed to play, so i am very optimistic concerning the qualification for Tokyo.