We Need to talk about the Field...

[alfie]

Yes I shouldn't write them off in advance ! Bit discouraged by the way Lincoln Lally and McKinna all failed to even match their qualifying marks in finals...seems to be a pattern ; when you'd think this is the time to improve , they tighten up. Less said about the female hammers the better.

Okoye in particular has the capacity to do something in this final but I'm not going to hold my breath...

[trickstat]

Here's hoping that Okoye and Miller will eke out at least one top 8 between them.

[alfie]

Yes. The jumpers really haven't done too badly so far. (And might yet do a bit better ?) Unfortunately the throwers , though...

[MysteryBrick]

Top 8s in the Men's Long Jump, Men's Triple Jump and Women's Pole Vault so far. No medal, but better than many suspected I think!

[paul]

Thanks carterhatch. :-)

[Grassmarket]

Ok, well…..

No, good for JF-D: timing is everything, as Greg Rutherford will tell you.

[Ursus]

Well, congrats to Scot Lincoln and Sophie McKinna in making the European shot put final, Lincoln continuing his great from from Birmingham while McKinna sheer guts scraped her into the women's final in the last qualifying spot. But it's time for Amelia Strickler to go back to the drawing board I think. Setting a PB of 18.18 in early June, then getting nowhere close to that in the 3 major championship qualifying rounds in the 2 months since then, is a pretty damning state of affairs for her. And yes, Divine Oladipo also didn't make it through to the final both her and in Birmingham a week earlier, but I'm giving her more slack as she's been competing (and studying) at full gas since last December in the NCAA system. Strickler hasn't got that excuse to fall back on.

Strickler has an 18.18 PB and has only been over 18 a couple of times. The rest of her season has been 17.xx which is basically where she’s at. 98cm shy of her PB at 17.20 in qualifying isn’t great but it’s not disaster central either - few are near their bests in morning qualifying.

Interesting point about her PB in Jun though. Look down the throwers’ lists in general and you’ll see a lot of early season SBs. May be some justification for the youngsters targeting Schools etc, but overall you have to wonder if the comps are there or the training is right. Needless to say the men’s spear is a particularly bad example - you have to go to 13th before finding a SB in Jul or Aug. The top 4, and 6 of the top 8, were set in May.

jjimbojames I basically said similar on McKinna in the daily thread.

[jjimbojames]

I think Sophie gets lucky by the other two not throwing well - if either of them had been close to par, she’d be out. I’m hoping she’s seeing massive results in training with her new technique that just haven’t clicked in comps and we’re one throw from her smashing it, because if not, she’s wasted chances at medals and almost finals by sticking with something that isn’t working…I hope she/her coach have got a cutoff point as to when they make a call as to whether it’s ultimately working, rather than become another Sophie Hitchon situation…

[RunUnlimited]

Well, congrats to Scot Lincoln and Sophie McKinna in making the European shot put final, Lincoln continuing his great from from Birmingham while McKinna sheer guts scraped her into the women's final in the last qualifying spot. But it's time for Amelia Strickler to go back to the drawing board I think. Setting a PB of 18.18 in early June, then getting nowhere close to that in the 3 major championship qualifying rounds in the 2 months since then, is a pretty damning state of affairs for her. And yes, Divine Oladipo also didn't make it through to the final both her and in Birmingham a week earlier, but I'm giving her more slack as she's been competing (and studying) at full gas since last December in the NCAA system. Strickler hasn't got that excuse to fall back on.

[carterhatch]

Paul... I too have suffered the 'unapproved purgatory' on a number of occasions ... If it happens I now copy my original message, and repost it a few minutes later, deleting the original if it ever emerges from the Dante-esque levels of AW.

[paul]

My original post _was_ about field.
But apparently it didn't make sense because no-one else on here saw what i saw.
sigh.
And my later post got lost in unapproved purgatory.
sigh.

sometimes online forums are not cool for the old mental health.

[MysteryBrick]

Exposure plus role models is definitely a part of it.

[Ursus]

I know Lucky, but I can never turn down an open goal for a bit of facetiousnesses!

Kids will mainly be inspired by seeing one of their own do well, rather than a random Swede or American. That said, many in the Brum region would have been able to identify with Nadeem and many more would have done with Chopra.

Generally the more field coverage the better. Generally as giving TV exposure to Brits that are way off the pace will do whatever the opposite to inspire is.

One of the hard fixes is the number of fouls / failures. People, understandably, don’t really want to see those. In non champs there are arguments to trial things like aggregate distances to increase engagement / coverage.

[trickstat]

Also, if they have tried an event, it shows them that there are people in the world who make their living from that event. For example, if you win the discus at your school sports, you can see that this meeting in Birmingham or London or wherever has athletes from many distant countries who have travelled there to throw.

[LuckySpikes]

We are talking about field events though (tangentially).

Maybe it's part of the conversation though? Can UKA work with the BBC to highlight and present field events better? If kids don't see them on telly or they're presented in a way that's not engaging, perhaps they're less likely to be inspired to give such events a try.