irish relay teams

hurdles1

hi all new here so hope everything ok. attended a squad day recently and chatting to a friend coach about olympics and irish relay teams especially womens 4x4, team described as 2 hurdlers,a cork mother,1 400m runner and her sister tagged along .fair play to all these athletes grasping the opportunity to taste the olympic experience i cannot understand why more athletes didnt try and make this squad.any decent 200m athlete should be well capable of running 53/54 seonds and challenging for squad place.im sure when athletes like niamh whelan,kelly proper, amy foster and few others were watching olympics they must have though it should be me out there. i wonder what advice they were getting because it was clear from previous season they had no chance of getting standards in their own events.4 years is a long time the same chance might not arise again

Pisco Sour

hurdles1 wrote: »

hi all new here so hope everything ok. attended a squad day recently and chatting to a friend coach about olympics and irish relay teams especially womens 4x4, team described as 2 hurdlers,a cork mother,1 400m runner and her sister tagged along .fair play to all these athletes grasping the opportunity to taste the olympic experience i cannot understand why more athletes didnt try and make this squad.any decent 200m athlete should be well capable of running 53/54 seonds and challenging for squad place.im sure when athletes like niamh whelan,kelly proper, amy foster and few others were watching olympics they must have though it should be me out there. i wonder what advice they were getting because it was clear from previous season they had no chance of getting standards in their own events.4 years is a long time the same chance might not arise again

Niamh Whelan, Kelly Proper and Amy Foster etc are not trained 400m runners. Zero chance of them running 53/54. And anyway none of them ran particularly well over 200m last year so how you think they could have made the 4x400 squad is beyond me.

Your "friend coach" sounds like a bit of a douche by the way!

hurdles1

if ,any of the athletes mentioned couldnt run 53/54 seconds with a solid years training they might as well pack up.niamh whelan was a fantastic 300m athlete in her younger days, kelly proper has a great work ethic in training has run great 4x4 relay legs for ferrybank and 800m when multi eventing. shes also beaten christine o. in belfast a couple of years ago.gary ryan took the plunge towards end of his career and got a world indoor relay medal when still a 200m athlete,john regis,todd bennett british 200m athletes slotted into relay teams and ran world class legs winning an array of medals. wissman of sweden sally pearson also have run fantastic relay legs in 4x4. having watched cuddihy training in killkenny a couple of u16 national medalists i coach were moving better so fair play to herself and marian heffernan for making the team, becoming an olympian is a once in a lifetime chance for most shame some didnt see it that way

downthemiddle

hurdles1 wrote: »

if ,any of the athletes mentioned couldnt run 53/54 seconds with a solid years training they might as well pack up.niamh whelan was a fantastic 300m athlete in her younger days, kelly proper has a great work ethic in training has run great 4x4 relay legs for ferrybank and 800m when multi eventing. shes also beaten christine o. in belfast a couple of years ago.gary ryan took the plunge towards end of his career and got a world indoor relay medal when still a 200m athlete,john regis,todd bennett british 200m athletes slotted into relay teams and ran world class legs winning an array of medals. wissman of sweden sally pearson also have run fantastic relay legs in 4x4. having watched christine cuddihy training in killkenny a couple of u16 national medalists i coach were moving better so fair play to herself and marian heffernan for making the team, becoming an olympian is a once in a lifetime chance for most shame some didnt see it that way

I didn't realise there was a third Cuddihy sister on the team :eek:

Pisco Sour

hurdles1 wrote: »

if ,any of the athletes mentioned couldnt run 53/54 seconds with a solid years training they might as well pack up.niamh whelan was a fantastic 300m athlete in her younger days, kelly proper has a great work ethic in training has run great 4x4 relay legs for ferrybank and 800m when multi eventing. shes also beaten christine o. in belfast a couple of years ago.gary ryan took the plunge towards end of his career and got a world indoor relay medal when still a 200m athlete,john regis,todd bennett british 200m athletes slotted into relay teams and ran world class legs winning an array of medals. wissman of sweden sally pearson also have run fantastic relay legs in 4x4. having watched cuddihy training in killkenny a couple of u16 national medalists i coach were moving better so fair play to herself and marian heffernan for making the team, becoming an olympian is a once in a lifetime chance for most shame some didnt see it that way

With a year or two of specific 400m training then they'd hit those sort of times, but that is assuming they are running well. Those 3 athletes you mentioned hardly set the world alight last year over their preferred shorter sprint distances.

To be honest, I'd be more asking questions as to why they didn't have a proper go at qualifying for the 4x100m for London. The team were qualified for Daegu but we never sent a team there. What a wasted opportunity. Questions need to be asked.

Thud

hurdles1 wrote: »

team described as 2 hurdlers,a cork mother,1 400m runner and her sister tagged along .

which is a worse qualification being from Cork or being a mother?

thirtyfoot

Pisco Sour wrote: »

Niamh Whelan, Kelly Proper and Amy Foster etc are not trained 400m runners. Zero chance of them running 53/54. And anyway none of them ran particularly well over 200m last year so how you think they could have made the 4x400 squad is beyond me.

So a 23.5 second 200m runner who could go through 200 in say 1.5 off their PB couldn't come home in 29 secs?

If they focused on it, they could have. Thats the point of the OP.

thirtyfoot

Pisco Sour wrote: »

To be honest, I'd be more asking questions as to why they didn't have a proper go at qualifying for the 4x100m for London. The team were qualified for Daegu but we never sent a team there. What a wasted opportunity. Questions need to be asked.

Agreed. First place is the athletes involved!!

Questions also need to be asked of the athletes involved in 4x4 in London.

Pisco Sour

thirtyfoot wrote: »

So a 23.5 second 200m runner who could go through 200 in say 1.5 off their PB couldn't come home in 29 secs?

If they focused on it, they could have. Thats the point of the OP.

Yes, I acknowledged that with a year or two of specific training they probably would have, but would take time. They would have been far better off targeting the 4x100m in my opinion. That was a seriously missed opportunity.

Pisco Sour

thirtyfoot wrote: »

Agreed. First place is the athletes involved!!

Questions also need to be asked of the athletes involved in 4x4 in London.

Speaking of questions, did HP ever come out with a post London review, and an analysis of what went wrong and what improvements need to be made? Maybe I completely missed it but I do not recall seeing anything.

hurdles1

glad i got few replys begining to get worried i was doing something wrong. looking forward to bit of banter here with fellow posters.ive been following athletics about 35 years now i was an average athlete spent few years in london in mid 80s trained bit at coptall stadium with shaftsbury harriers watching mike mcfarlane {jodie willams coach} and other brit internationals train , then moved west london started training at west london stadium watching linford christie and ade mafe training , real eye opener returned home to jogging boom here in ireland gave up after a couple of years busted up with stress fractures and shin splints.started coaching my daughter about 9 years ago currently coach small group things going well had 7 different athletes win national titles in sprint /long hurdles another 8 medallists at national level some making international teams in that 9 years.im also a big triple jump fan and have also looked after 3 athletes to national titles. some times i wonder why i bother giving up 3/4 days per week but id miss it big time if i packed up .ill continue to go to uk trials every year , c palace grand prix and few mettings out foreign because im a real athletics person same as 99%of people on here and im sure wed do a better job running things than the muppets in charge currently.