Athletics on TV

El Caballo

Chivito550 wrote: »

I've no doubt Bolt is dodging Wayde Van Niekerk. There's a reasonable possibility he would lose to him. I'd still have Bolt as favourite given WVN would have already the 400 in his legs. Just a pity egos and the need to retire undefeated gets in the way of real athletics showdown.

Bolt won in 10.07 last night against a truly dreadful field. Seems like race organisers will not entertain the idea of him losing a race. Cherry picking 10.2 second runners for him. Reducing our sport to boxing.

The golden spike meeting always has weak fields in the sprints. The climate is not good for sprinting as it is usually cold, wet and windy and plays much more into the hands of good distance running conditions. You also have to consider the starpower across all the events. You had Bolt, Farah, Van Niekerk and Rudisha at the meet, you can imagine the cost of bringing possibly the 4 biggest stars of T+F to a meet of this size, it doesn't leave much room to afford more top performers to the meet. It's a strategy that works for the organisers though as the meet sells out every year. They are not protecting Bolt, they are trying to fill the stands and these guys can do it better than anyone else.

Bolt announced he wasn't running the 200m in London long before WvN announced he was so I think that point is moot. Maybe Van Niekerk is actually doing it because Bolt is not. If you think Bolts ego is stopping him as he wants to retire undefeated, why is he running his first Diamond league meet in 6 years in Monaco next month?

Chivito550

El Caballo wrote: »

The golden spike meeting always has weak fields in the sprints. The climate is not good for sprinting as it is usually cold, wet and windy and plays much more into the hands of good distance running conditions. You also have to consider the starpower across all the events. You had Bolt, Farah, Van Niekerk and Rudisha at the meet, you can imagine the cost of bringing possibly the 4 biggest stars of T+F to a meet of this size, it doesn't leave much room to afford more top performers to the meet. It's a strategy that works for the organisers though as the meet sells out every year. They are not protecting Bolt, they are trying to fill the stands and these guys can do it better than anyone else.

Bolt announced he wasn't running the 200m in London long before WvN announced he was so I think that point is moot. Maybe Van Niekerk is actually doing it because Bolt is not. If you think Bolts ego is stopping him as he wants to retire undefeated, why is he running his first Diamond league meet in 6 years in Monaco next month?

First DL meet in 6 years? Where did you get that from? He ran London last year, or the year before (can't remember which).

I don't recall the 100m being so weak in the past as it was last night to be honest. But if you think conditions for distance running are perfect then it made very little difference there either, as that was an absolutely dreadful 10000m field that Mo was lined up against. You could even hear the stadium announcer shouting "Mo Mo Mo" throughout the race. Maybe such pantomime is what some are after. Not for me though. Big names are great but you need competitive fields otherwise it becomes a bit of a joke.

El Caballo

Chivito550 wrote: »

First DL meet in 6 years? Where did you get that from? He ran London last year, or the year before (can't remember which).

I don't recall the 100m being so weak in the past as it was last night to be honest. But if you think conditions for distance running are perfect then it made very little difference there either, as that was an absolutely dreadful 10000m field that Mo was lined up against. You could even hear the stadium announcer shouting "Mo Mo Mo" throughout the race. Maybe such pantomime is what some are after. Not for me though. Big names are great but you need competitive fields otherwise it becomes a bit of a joke.

Not disagreeing at all with you on rathering competitive fields and agree that it wasn't a competitive field for Farah either but not all meets are Monaco or Eugene etc. and you have to understand that too. The golden spike is a big meet on the calander but it is not in the top tier much like the AIT grand prix being able to pull a few big stars like Bishop, Barshim, Eaton over the years but never truly giving them competition. You can't expect every meet to be lined with Olympic finalists.

It is 6 years since his last Diamond league appearance, the 100m in London is not a diamond league eligible event.

walshb

Chivito550 wrote: »

Well my so called attack on the sport was towards meet organisers for carefully designing weak fields to allow Bolt win despite being in poor race shape right now. They couldn't have him lose given they had fireworks and the Jamaican national anthem set up for after the race. That to me is a demonstration, rather than genuine competitive sport.

Your singling out an event here and there to rant over a ten year dominance is just plain silly. It makes no sense.

It's like you are new to the sport. This has happened many times through the years from time to time.

To take an example here and there and then compare it in a derogatory sense to the sport of boxing is just bonkers.

Not "attacking" you btw, just pointing out the silliness of it.

If I have learned one single thing from admiring Bolt through the years it is his utter determination to prove himself the best and to meet all comers to do so.

Chivito550

walshb wrote: »

Your singling out an event here and there to rant over a ten year dominance is just plain silly. It makes no sense.

It's like you are new to the sport. This has happened many times through the years from time to time.

To take an example here and there and then compare it in a derogatory sense to the sport of boxing is just bonkers.

Not "attacking" you btw, just pointing out the silliness of it.

If I have learned one single thing from admiring Bolt through the years it is his utter determination to prove himself the best and to meet all comers to do so.

Your drawing your own conclusions. Whatever makes you happy I suppose.

Not ranting over any period of an athletes dominance. I enjoy Bolt a lot. In fact I have seen him race in the flesh live on 27 occasions since 2011 (With another 4 to come in London). Literally every single Championship race he has run since Daegu with the exception of the 200m heats in Rio last year. That's a damn lot of Bolt. I think I can appreciate his brilliance a bit more than yourself and your grand total of 0 (that's an assumption), so get off the high horse. Nothing beats seeing brilliance in the flesh. TV never does it full justice.

Bolt will probably win in London. He'll produce the goods again, and he'll be sorely missed once it is all over.

It's the setting up of weak fields throughout the year that I dislike. It's not just Bolt. Farah gets the same treatment too. I'm not even sure if these guys request this, or if it is merely race organisers who need to 100% ensure the star attraction wins the race. Either way, it blows. It's awful to watch. It really isn't the end of the world if Bolt loses to De Grasse now. He'll probably beat him in August anyway. But as fans of the sport we want to see proper contests, not the greatest of all time racing against guys who are slower than the current Irish record! There seems to be a need to protect the brand. Bolt losing is not good business.

That's why I admire Rudisha so much. Never ducks out of races. When he was recovering from a bad injury he raced all the best guys in 2014 and lost consistently. Well he won World and Olympic gold in 2015 and 2016, so it didn't do him any harm.

walshb

Chivito550 wrote: »

That's why I admire Rudisha so much. Never ducks out of races. When he was recovering from a bad injury he raced all the best guys in 2014 and lost consistently. Well he won World and Olympic gold in 2015 and 2016, so it didn't do him any harm.

And maybe because Rudisha cannot be nearly as selective as Bolt would explain that.....Rudisha gets paid money to race. Bolt gets paid a lot more from both racing and other ventures.

Bolt is a global phenomenon who doesn't and didn't need to race every single race.

Your disguised analogy/comparison with Bolt is pointless, as well as being a side swipe at Bolt.

Braken

110 hurdles is the event for me...always qualify fields...

wgtomblin

Lausanne Diamond League tonight, 7pm Eurosport

Final event is 4 x 100m relay, women.
Good to see a young Irish team entered (Scott M. Mawdsley S. Akpe-moses G. Neville C.)

raiders11

wgtomblin wrote: »

Lausanne Diamond League tonight, 7pm Eurosport

Final event is 4 x 100m relay, women.
Good to see a young Irish team entered (Scott M. Mawdsley S. Akpe-moses G. Neville C.)

Junior record smashed there by looks of it, was 45.08, they have just run 44.31:D

wgtomblin

The best DL meet I've watched in a long while.
Several meet records and nat records. Ideal weather conditions.
5th fastest W mile
5th longest W javelin
5th highest jump 2.06

Entertaining duels in Men's PV and TJ.
12:55 in the 5000m. 3 went sub 13.

And to top it off... they presented 1st prize to Castlin, 5th place finisher in W 100m Hurdles. She happily posed for photos. .. maybe hoping nobody noticed the error! ☺

Braken

Van Niekerk looks unbeatable in the 400m an easy sub 44 tonight

El Caballo

Braken wrote: »

Van Niekerk looks unbeatable in the 400m an easy sub 44 tonight

Possibly but maybe not much longer. There's a 22 year old by the name of Fred Kerley on the rise and he may push WvN. Kerley ran a heat in a college race this year in 44.09 letting up with 15m to go. He then destroyed Quincy Watts NCAA record in May running 43.70 in a college race which is faster than Kirani James has ever run for 400m.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKM1srWNfWs

Other 400m news is that Kirani James has pulled out of the World Champs due to illness.

raiders11

El Caballo wrote: »

Possibly but maybe not much longer. There's a 22 year old by the name of Fred Kerley on the rise and he may push WvN. Kerley ran a heat in a college race this year in 44.09 letting up with 15m to go. He then destroyed Quincy Watts NCAA record in May running 43.70 in a college race which is faster than Kirani James or Leshawn Merritt have ever run for 400.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKM1srWNfWs

Other 400m news is that Kirani James has pulled out of the World Champs due to illness.

Am for Letterkenny tomorrow, hope the 400 is as good:)

Krusty_Clown

wgtomblin wrote: »

Lausanne Diamond League tonight, 7pm Eurosport

Completely missed that this was on. Thankfully Eurosport repeat the program regularly (5pm today on Eurosport). Alternative coverage on BBC2 Saturday @10am.

Also, London Anniversary Games taking place on Sunday. BBC2 @12:15- 13:15, BBC1 @13:15.

walshb

Lausanne Diamond League highlights BBC2 at 10 this morning.

28064212

RTE are showing (some of) the National Track and Field Championships live on July 23rd, 1800 - 1955. Good to see

18:05|400mH|Men
18:15|800m|Women
18:25|800m|Men
18:35|400m|Women
18:45|400m|Men
19:00|100m|Women
19:10|100m|Men
19:20|100m|Men B
19:30|1500m|Women
19:45|1500m|Men

HigginsJ

British Olympian Tom Bosworth just walked a mile in 5:31, way to make yourself feel slow!!

pconn062

HigginsJ wrote: »

British Olympian Tom Bosworth just walked a mile in 5:31, way to make yourself feel slow!!

"Walked". I'd take that with a big pinch of salt, footage from the race clearly shows him with both feet off the ground. He ran a slow mile with a funny gait.

runnerholic

pconn062 wrote: »

"Walked". I'd take that with a big pinch of salt, footage from the race clearly shows him with both feet off the ground. He ran a slow mile with a funny gait.

Ridiculous sport, impossible to police.

Testosterscone

Cork City Sports Live on TG4 tomorrow a 7.20pm

pconn062

Testosterscone wrote: »

Cork City Sports Live on TG4 tomorrow a 7.20pm

Pretty amatuerish so far, a complete mess up in the 100m and now a huge delay with the men's 400mH. Javier Coulson looks a bit pissed off.

KielyUnusual

pconn062 wrote: »

Pretty amatuerish so far, a complete mess up in the 100m and now a huge delay with the men's 400mH. Javier Coulson looks a bit pissed off.

God, it is embarrassing, isn't it. Similar story at the Morton Games for the 400m. Surely, they must do a systems check just before the meet and make sure everything is in working order.

pconn062

KielyUnusual wrote: »

God, it is embarrassing, isn't it. Similar story at the Morton Games for the 400m. Surely, they must do a systems check just before the meet and make sure everything is in working order.

Pretty bad alright. I mean, we can all accept that things can go wrong but it looks bad when you invite Coulson over and then leave him standing around in his lane for 10 mins. It's the same story with the AIT indoor meet every year.

Itziger

I'm sorry to say it's part of the 'Sure we'll be grand; everyone loves us and the craic is great ' mentality. I'm not quite so sure about the 'everyone' ............... There's a time and place for boring efficiency too.

average_runner

pconn062 wrote: »

Pretty bad alright. I mean, we can all accept that things can go wrong but it looks bad when you invite Coulson over and then leave him standing around in his lane for 10 mins. It's the same story with the AIT indoor meet every year.

AIT is better organised than this. Don't remember waiting for 10 mins for a event this year. Could be old age though

Pherekydes

How can they run off the schools' championships like clockwork every year?

wgtomblin

This Sunday 23rd July...

Morton Games highlights , Eurosport 12.30pm.

And.. mentioned already , live coverage of Nationals , RTE from 6pm

adrian522

Pretty disappointing if this is true:

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/trackandfield/de-grasse-bolt-monaco-preview-1.4212034

Anyway, it should be a pretty good watch on Friday evening in any case, Eurosport 9:30pm.

Preview here:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2017/07/2017-monaco-diamond-league-preview-bolts-final-test-van-niekerk-400-jager-looks-end-us-dl-steeple-drought-centro-vs-kiprop-stacked-1500/

Murph_D

At least the TG4 TV coverage of Cork had on-screen timing during the races, something that's been glaringly absent in Irish athletics coverage in recent years. Hopefully RTÉ can replicate that in Nationals coverage. Not something you would imagine is terribly difficult to set up.

Testosterscone

Monaco Diamond League on Eurosport at 7pm

Preview from Letsrun

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2017/07/2017-monaco-diamond-league-preview-bolts-final-test-van-niekerk-400-jager-looks-end-us-dl-steeple-drought-centro-vs-kiprop-stacked-1500/