Birmingham CWG Day 6 - Sunday 7th

[SprintRelayFan]

Thanks for that, hadn’t seen

[marilyn1]

And where she at. Northern carolina university perhaps.I have little trust in the USA college system as far as tested . athletes are concerned. How many Rosses are there. I seem to recall his father was busted,Duane Ross that is. Big fish at Tenessee..Sad.

[paul]

Indeed. Thanks RU.

[RunUnlimited]

Just to be clear, Amusan is not the athlete in question, it was the anchor Nwokocha, who is the one who failed the test.

[paul]

So Amusan two golds in one morning session - I suspect not a common occurrence

Or maybe not. Looks like a team-mate let her down:

https://guardian.ng/breakingnews/nig...-for-steroids/

[SprintRelayFan]

I was very impressed with the stadium and organisation

[jjimbojames]

Hopefully, yes…she may just be getting all of the growing pains issues out of the way in one go 🤞

[jjimbojames]

Oh absolutely!

[marra]

Fair points, although I would say that we are all guilty of being armchair experts at times, which is obviously a lot easier than being in the heat of the event! I know I certainly am!

[jjimbojames]

To be fair, I did mention both her and Hannah earlier.

You disagree, that’s fine - but check back to posters’ real time reaction to a number of those races, and you will see others who also felt she had been the cause of a poorer result than expected, whether a poor heat run making it difficult for the final, or a final result. I would argue she has had more shockers than just Tokyo, and that running below open times when others step up costs the team - in total time or racing position. To me, “costing us a medal” doesn’t mean we leave with nothing, it could mean just getting a lower one than we might have done.

I do agree with you that leaving without a medal/coming 4th will hurt more than eg getting silver instead of gold, so on the matter at hand, I agree, she will be feeling hard done by yesterday, and I’m sure some sort of combination of Vicky and/or Jodie will feel very bad about it and own it to the others.

[Chafford1]

Discussions about the specifics will no doubt continue but in general terms Birmingham has knocked it out of the park - 1.5 million spectators overall and capacity or near capacity crowds for the athletics at Alexander Stadium. I've been glued to the athletics feed for the 6 days of competition. Onto the European Sports Championships at the end oc this week!

[marra]

Things are changing, drobbie, Aussie field events here were encouraging and you cannot say that seriously about our GB field events.wow the aussies even had a short hurdler who massively improved. Look separately at our best over the season so far, where are we in sprints long distances long hurdles and the jumps and throws.I think the aussies who have had poor results several years ago are improving and we are going backwards, but then you use the medals with relays thrown in as a slightly misleading basis to compare us to the aussies.

Compared to 2018, the Aussies won 1 more track medal, 5 fewer field medals and 4 fewer medals total.

Compared to 2018, GBR athletes won 7 more track medals, 3 more field medals and 10 more medals total.

I even excluded GBR relay medals from that (we won 3 here, 2 in 18 fyi).

Please show how a next swing of 6 track medals, 8 field medals and 14 medals total show "Aussies are improving and we are going backwards"?

[Grassmarket]

Yeah, that is definitely the way to do it. No point in lolloping around at the back hoping for a PB,

[marra]

Like I said, I'll give you Tokyo. But even some of the other examples you lay out, I just can't agree.

Eugene - yes, she was on 1st and ran 52.0.

She was also in lane 1, which is probably not the lane she would have chosen. She still ran the 2nd quickest split on the first leg behind the US. And the team qualified 2nd for the final, so under NO circumstances could that be said to be 'a poor lane'. She certainly didn't "cost us a medal" there.

Belgrade - if you are using Ama's poor leg in Tokyo as leaving too much for everyone else to do, why does that not work here in reverse?

And yes, stats don't say who you are against - but equally being against "weaker" athletes on paper doesn't mean much. Some people regularly run better in relays than their flat speed. Sometimes the nature of a 4x4 and having to get past people means pure speed doesn't work.

Again, if we're having a discussion about whether she's the right fit for the relay, fine. I'm here for that. But I'm not here for the idea that she and she alone has repeatedly cost us medals (which was what you had said initially) when there's maybe 1 occasion when that could be said to be true.

[Runner88]

Sarah Inglis must get a special mention too. She really went out with intent in that 5000m and hung on for as long as she could. Went through 3k in well under 9 mins, possibly the first time she’s done that in a 5k. And all that with the 10k in her legs!

I hope she sticks with the track for a while longer as there is untapped potential there. She ran a good marathon not so long ago so she has options.