OlympicsFan

Germany is no surprise, there were only 3 or 4 weaker relays in this field.

No, not really. They were 4th in 2016 and 2017. I think Netherlands and South Africa are the upsets. Everyone knew that South Africa had the potential (especially when they still had Van Niekerk), but now they finally got it all together.

Business as usual, they almost always mess up somehow.

Amazing run for GB, especially considering that Kilty was part of that relay. If they would replace Kilty with a fit Prescod, then they would be almost unbeatable. A 4th gold incoming for them, far better results than they could have ever dreamt of. Too bad Timothy Duckworth wasnt here, he probably would have won gold too. If ski jumping would be part of athletics and Eddie the Eagle would still be active, then he probably would have won gold here too.

Very good to see that mens 4 x 100 m relay is one of the most competitive events here, a lot of diversity.

GB is the favorite for the gold, would be amazing for them to end this competition with 3 golds, especially because it is pretty unlikely for them to win any golds next year.

Wouldnt surprise me, most of the time she comes out of nowhere for the biggest competitions.

Yeah, if USA, Jamaica or GB drop the baton and the german relay does have better exchanges, then maybe they could win a medal, but to be honest it would be pretty embarrassing if this german B team would win a medal.

German officials need to get their shit together and find out why about 2 dozens of the best german athletes are injured. At least 10 athletes who could have finished top 8 arent here and one or two of them even could have won a medal. If this doesnt dramatically change next year, then some heads need to roll.

The performance by the german 4 x 100 m relay makes me really sad, with all the best girls competing this would have been a safe gold, but when 4 of your 5 best girls (Mayer, Müller, Pinto, Mihambo) are missing this is what you get.

Great performance by Seitz in all-around and uneven bars, given that she had a far from perfect preparation. She should have secured a spot in both finals with her score. Also a pretty nice score for Voss on balance beam, but probably not enough for the final. The german team did a solid job considering that Alt and Scheder are missing and with both of them the german team probably could have scored 3 or 4 points more.

Mainly the javelin throw, where Thiam was hindered all season long by an (elbow?) injury. Also the long jump and the high jump were subpar for Thiam + KJT setting new personal bests in the shot put/javelin throw of course also didnt help Thiam. Edit: KJT was having an almost perfect competition for her standards, only her 200 m run was a bit disappointing, thats probably were she lost the points she needed to get over 7000 points. With 22.8 or 22.9 she would have gained another 30 points or so.

Not sure anyone was doubting that, especially after her running 21.74 into a headwind in Zürich.

So before the start of the competition, what made you sure that he would beat at least 2 out of Coleman/Simbine/Hughes/Gatlin in the 100 m and/or at least 1 out of Lyles/Guliyev/Quinonez in the 200 m, given that all of them have been faster than him (multiple times) in those respective events?

Yes, in which other events than mens decathlon did you predict a medal for Canada?

I think the guy who won a medal in race walking is called Dunfee. Both mens 50 km race walking and mens 5000 m seem very open. Both canadian guys could win gold next year or finish without a medal. I dont see a medal for Warner next year and 1 or 2 bronze medals for De Grasse at best. Not sure any other canadian athletes realistically could win a medal in Tokyo. Watson, Debues-Stafford, Crew and Newman are all progressing nicely, but i still would be surprised to see them winning a medal. Also your womens 4 x 400 m relay seems to be in a good place although i think they are more likely to finish 5th here than to win bronze. Your mens 4 x 100 m relay cant be considered a medal favorite here or in Tokyo (at this point). I think GB, Japan, China and the US are all more likely to medal and other nations like Jamaica or the Netherlands are not far off.

According to Wikipedia Kaul is now only the 10th athlete to win gold at youth, junior and senior level. The other 9 who did it are Adams, Campbell-Brown, Stevens, Pittman, Isinbayeva, Storl, Bolt, James and Freitag. He is also the first to do it since Storl and James did it in 2011 and only the 3rd european athlete to do it.

I am really surprised by some of the comments on here. I remember before the start of the competition some canadian user said that the canadian men (all sports combined) might not win a single medal in Tokyo and now that they already have 5 medals there are still complaints ... I would really like to see the predictions by those people ... personally i only expected one silver medal for Canada here (by Warner), so for me Canada is way overperforming already, but maybe thats just me ... I think if Canada could win 2 or 3 medals in athletics in Tokyo it would be a great result for them and i wouldnt bet anything on them winning more medals than that.

Yeah, that was kind of my point, he isnt too old to get back to the top. I dont think that you can say that he is looking good to "remain the king". Whoever wins the title is the king, so currently Kaul is the king. We dont know by how much Kaul will improve next year (this year he improved by more than 400 points), but of course Mayer still is the clear favorite for Tokyo. Still we cant forget that a) this is the second big competition in a row where he didnt get a result and b) he still needs to get the qualifying mark for Tokyo next year and he said that he cant do 2 decathlons in one year, so it might be kind of tricky for him to plan the next year.

Yeah, all of that might be true, but i was talking about the perspective from before the start of this competition. I think "back then" many/most people favored Thompson/SAFP over DAS and Thiam over KJT. Of course after the javelin throw Kaul was the favorite for gold, but before the start of the competition noone thought that he could win gold.

Lol ... how old is Mayer? Also Zhoya is improving rapidly!

If you really predicted DAS to win 200 m gold, then good for you. I thought SAFP or Thompson would win the gold, but then they withdrew. I also considered Thiam the favorite for gold, but again, if you predicted gold for KJT then congrats. I hope that after the end of the world championships all predicitions will be revealed so that we will see what other people thought who the favorite was.

Certainly the most unexpected world champion here. Thanks to this gold Germany is now only 1 bronze behind schedule.

Both were favorites for silver, but i dont think anyone expected gold from DAS or KJT and i dont see either of them winning gold in Tokyo.

German tv is trying their best to jinx Kaul ...