Which athlete/former athlete would you like to have a pint with?

Pisco Sour

Idea totally robbed from the boxing forum. Which athlete or former athlete would you, if given the choice, spend an evening supping on Oul Arthur's Finest with and why?

BobMac104

steve jones i reckon.

walshb

I would select Seb Coe. He seems like a very well read and interesting person, plus, he's a fan of boxing for many years. So, maybe he might even be asking me questions:)

What three questions would you ask him/her if you had three only?

Pisco Sour

I'd go with Daley Thompson. That man strikes me as somebody who would be some craic altogether.

If language barriers were taken out of the equation then Ivan Ukhov would be up there. Anybody who shows up to do a high jump competition drunk is somebody worth listening to.

Krusty_Clown

Emil Zátopek. Difficult to imagine all the stories that guy lived through. Plus he's Czech, so probably drinks his own weight in beer.

dermCu

Sara Galimberti - Obviously because it would be great to hear her views on the current state of Italian female middle distance running.

Pisco Sour

dermCu wrote: »

Sara Galimberti - Obviously because it would be great to hear her views on the current state of Italian female middle distance running.

Really love your use of the word "obviously" there.

drquirky

Zapotek, Prefontaine or Dave Bedford

RoyMcC

drquirky wrote: »

Zapotek, Prefontaine or Dave Bedford

Who is this Zapotek of whom you speak I'd pretty much go with these three though

• Zatopek for the tales of training and personal privation he could relate
• Pre to see where he got his motivation, and for tales of Bowerman and Oregon running
• Bedford to keep buying the drinks

Dan man

Roman Sebrle, really nice guy and legend of the sport.... the man is indestructible...in 2007 he was speared through the shoulder by a wayward javelin at an athletics meet in South Africa. The 12cm deep injury was said to be just 1cm away from ending his career and had it pierced a vital organ then it would likely to have been fatal. Undeterred by the mishap, he nonchalantly removed the said offending object and a mere 11 stitches later he went on to claim the decathlon gold medal at the worlds later that season*. Will be sad to see him go whenever he retires.

*may be a slightly dramatised version of events but you get the picture!

TJC

Hmmmm. Jess Ennis!! :D

(Well maybe not so much a conversation;))

Dan man

TJC wrote: »

Hmmmm. Jess Ennis!! :D

(Well maybe not so much a conversation;))

A game of darts maybe?

BeepBeep67

My first memory of watching athletics on TV was the 1980 Summer Olympics and as I was running MD was fascinated with the Coe - Ovett duels, so I'd love to sit down with both of them and hear the unedited truth about their relationship and how each felt after each race.

lynchieboy

A pint (or three) in the Lake District with Kenny Stuart. A chat about fell running and hunting.:)

Chartsengrafs

Daley Thompson and Haile Gebrselassie spring to mind immediately so I would have to say Jessica Ennis.

Lock

I'd love to go for a pint with Tim Hutchings. I'm not going to say he's probably or arguably the best commentator in the sport, he just is. He'd have plenty of anecdotes from the last 20 years in the sports that could keep the conversation flowing.

I love hearing about training sessions the world's best did. Hutchings wasn't exactly a world leader in the 5k but he did run a PB for 4th in the 5k final in 84' which is pretty impressive. Plus he was coached by Frank Horwill who used to give his athletes monster sessions, I wonder what times Hutchings was expected to hit in training.

Other than that. I'd love to hear from Seb Coe, Steve Cram, Steve Jones, Charlie Spedding or Brendan Foster. Maybe El Guerrouj but not sure about his English

pre

lolo jones

SharkTale

Sharon Davies

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pre

SharkTale wrote: »

Sharon Davies

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deadly

pc11

Lock wrote: »

I'd love to go for a pint with Tim Hutchings. I'm not going to say he's probably or arguably the best commentator in the sport, he just is. He'd have plenty of anecdotes from the last 20 years in the sports that could keep the conversation flowing.

I'm stunned. I think Hutchings is simply dreadful as a commentator. He just says 'Oh my word' every few seconds and stumbles over facts and figures making big pronouncements and then rowing back on them, almost as bad as George Hamilton and Tony O'Donoghue IMO.

Dan man

pc11 wrote: »

I'm stunned. I think Hutchings is simply dreadful as a commentator. He just says 'Oh my word' every few seconds and stumbles over facts and figures making big pronouncements and then rowing back on them, almost as bad as George Hamilton and Tony O'Donoghue IMO.

Haha, come to think of it he does like to say that quite often doesn't he? Still a good commentator though.
George isn't that awful, no doubt that his athletics knowledge is far from great but come the Olympics if any Irish athletes make finals then I'll be flicking over the channel to watch his commentary as there's no better person to commentate on the Irish. His commentary on Sonia's silver in Sydney 2000 was excellent.

fiddy3

Tim Hutchings is, by a distance, the best athletics commentator. Isn't afraid to impart his knowledge to the audience and understands the sport better than most. There's a reason the American networks and Diamond League broadcasts signed him up. The BBC crew Cram and Foster dumb things down an awful lot. George Hamilton is simply pathetic at athletics, from his inability to pronounce well-known athletes names correctly to the absence of anything any way informative beyond his overused media guide.

myflipflops

fiddy3 wrote: »

Tim Hutchings is, by a distance, the best athletics commentator. Isn't afraid to impart his knowledge to the audience and understands the sport better than most. There's a reason the American networks and Diamond League broadcasts signed him up. The BBC crew Cram and Foster dumb things down an awful lot. George Hamilton is simply pathetic at athletics, from his inability to pronounce well-known athletes names correctly to the absence of anything any way informative beyond his overused media guide.

I hope BBC never sign Hutchings. He would have to go down the same route as the others. He is allowed say what he likes on Eurosport.

As bad as Hamilton is, he's made to sound like Michael Johnson when he has Catherine Davis beside him in the commentary box. She is the single worst sporting commentator I have ever heard.

pc11

During the 84 and 88 Olympics in particular, I used to keep myself awake spotting George Hamilton's blunders. The greatest of all was the Women's 800 final in 88. He couldn't tell the 2 top athletes (Wachtel & Wodars) apart and got them the wrong way around for the whole race. I was screaming at the telly. In RTE's roundup of the games they had to leave out that event. 20 years later he finally admitted it in an RTE Guide interview.

IMO there's much more to being a good commentator than knowing a lot about athletics, it's also about their manner, vocab, tone, voice etc and to me Hutchings, Hamilton and Tony O'Donoghue are just dreadful as commentators. I just hate the way they speak. I do have a thing about good speakers though, I'm very tuned into voices. Mind you, I'm struggling to name anyone I do like. I thought Ovett wasn't bad.

myflipflops

Sean Kelly is one of the best commentators in any sport I have watched a lot of and he maybe has the worst sounding voice imagineable.

If you want someone with a great voice to go with great knowledge and insight then Michael Johnson is your man. In other sports, Richie Benaud is a superb cricket commentator as is Michael Holding and both have lyrical voices.

Pisco Sour

pc11 wrote: »

I thought Ovett wasn't bad.

A quote from Ovett commentating for ITV at a 1993 race in Oslo:

"Sonia hasn't got a kick".



I think Hutchins is a top commentator. I also really like Stuart Story and Paul Dickinson, both have good voices and plenty of knowledge.

Hamilton is absolutely awful! His knowledge of the sport is very poor. He has an excellent voice though and as has been said, if an Irish person was going for gold, I'd much rather listen to him, to bring the bandwaggonning enthusiasm across to all the bandwaggoners watching across the country.

Bill O'Herlihy is shocking. Every 4 years he launches an inquest into our unforgiveable failure to beat the Kenyans and Jamaicans. "Eamonn, what is going wrong in Irish athletics?". Muppet, no wonder most people (incorrectly) think we are sh1te at athletics, when they are being fed that rubbish.

Although his inadeqacies pale in comparison to Peter Collins. Has there ever been a worse presenter of athletics (Ortis Deley aside)?

walshb

I loved David Coleman commentating in athletics. Even when he blundered the call in the '91 world 100 final. He failed to notice that Lewis had clearly won the race. Also, Storey and Dickinson are so so recognisable. Storey is finished on the beeb these past few years.

I also loved Ron Pickering's commentary.

Favourite Irish are Jim Sherwin. Best call from Jim was when Michelle Smith was winning her golds in Atlanta.