Commonwealth Games

deisedude

The Commonwealth games main athletics programme starts tomorrow so I thought I'd start a thread for the discussion.

Small number of Northern Ireland athletes competing including Ciara Mageean, the Flanagan sisters, Sommer Lecky and Kate O'Connor

Pherekydes

O'Connor opened with a hurdles PB, 13.74, and followed up with a decent HJ of 1.78m, putting her 3 pts ahead of NR schedule. McCauley was well down on her PB schedule after 2 events. Only 8 started and one's a complete no-hoper from Papua New Guinea, so the women have an excellent chance of a high placing in a major championship.

The 10000m has just 9 starters later this evening.

Pherekydes

O'Connor won the Shot with 13.73m, closing the gap on event leader, KJT, to just 11 pts.

Pherekydes

Another PB for Kate in the 200m and she's sitting pretty in 2nd overnight.

Cosmo Kramer

Down to fifth of the eight after five events but still in with a medal hope. Weird to see a championship multi event with so few competitors. Incidentally Irish international soccer player Callum O'Dowda's sister is one of the competitors, representing England. Outside of KJT this may be the best chance some of the entrants will ever have to win a championship medal.

Pherekydes

She's by far the best javelin thrower so should move closer to the medals. Then it's down to the 800m.

Pherekydes

Kate takes the lead after the first round of the javelin!

Pherekydes

Solid second with only the 800 to go.

Cosmo Kramer

In a good position to get a medal ahead of the 800m. Looks likely to be between O'Connor and O'Dowda for silver and bronze.

For obvious reasons there won't have been many Republic of Ireland athletes who have won commonwealth games medals so a bit of a novelty to this medal win if she can hold on here.

Cosmo Kramer

Solid 800 to hold off O'Dowda and take the silver. Not the strongest field but she'll always be a championship medalist now.

Swashbuckler

That women's 10k summed up everything I love about the distance. Amazing stuff.

deisedude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119425619#Comment_119425619

We can claim O'Dowda too given her brother plays for us!

Pherekydes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119425619#Comment_119425619

She won a silver at the '19 Euro Jnrs.

And today she was selected for the Euros! A great day for her.

deisedude

Only caught up on the women's 10,000m this morning. What a race! You could see every bit of pain in Eilish McColgans face with a lap to go but she dug in there. Lovely scenes at then end celebrating with her Mum

Caprica

The fields may not have been huge but both 10k’s were fantastic races.

I was delighted for Eilish Mc Colgan, the crowd support on the last lap was amazing. I thought the Kenyans were going to sit on her shoulder but they did their bit to make a race of it. I didn’t know she was a sprinter. Her 3rd Commonwealth Games and her 4th different race. Lovely to see her with her mother in the stadium and then on the BBC. Flower of Scotland is a great anthem.

Great performance by Kate O’Connor in the Heptathlon, hopefully another good performance to come in Munich. I thought after the 100 semis that Thompson Herrah was under threat in the final but she held of everyone.

Swashbuckler

Eilish is great to follow on social media. Puts a lot of her training clips up there and loads of personal behind the scenes stuff. Great sense of humour too. Was delighted for her. SHe's had a tough time with Covid, another sickness and some niggles.

Cosmo Kramer

The 10,000 was a great race. Maybe it's just me but I thought her mother could have stepped out of the limelight and left Eilish to get the credit for the win in her own right, rather than as Liz McColgan's daughter, which is what she's always been seen as - and will continue to be as long as her mother is standing next to her in her post race interviews.

robinph

I don't recall Liz [s] McColgan[/s] being around much previously in coverage of Elish, other than commentators mention her quite a bit. Thought it was only a relatively recent thing with Liz doing the coaching, as in she's not been doing it for the whole career so far. Liz was based in Dubai or something until recently as far as I remember.

Swashbuckler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119427531#Comment_119427531

Having followed Eilish for a while I completely get why Liz was there beside her in a couple of interviews. Especially it being the Commonwealth. And seeing how Eilish responds to stories about her Mum from fans on social media I'd guess Eilish was only delighted for her to be there. There's very much a "following in her footsteps" vibe going on and not in a bad way. Liz seems like a genuinely nice person - not one of them domineering, grab her moment types.

I'm not sure she's still seen as Liz McColgan's daughter. It's just a case of mother and daughter both being high level elites at the same distance (Eilish blowing her Mum's times out of the water lately).

I'm sounding like a McColgan fanboy here...lol

rovers_runner

Fair enough it's another competition to test themselves in but would any Irish athlete consider a commonwealth medal as a career high point or something to aim for starting off?

Wonder how any Gael from the north can stomach competing in this triumphalist charade.

robinph

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119430766#Comment_119430766

Depends on the event.

If it's cricket then everyone is there, if its swimming then most are there, if athletics sprints or endurance then the majority of the big players are there.

It's a major multi sports event and isn't going to do any harm as practice for junior athletes before a go at Olympic or Worlds. People still participate in Europeans and other regional events where not everyone is there, the commonwealth is just a different set of "not everyone".

Cosmo Kramer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119430766#Comment_119430766

Most athletes don't care about the political stuff, they just want to win medals if they can.

There are competitors from the south at these games making the effort to compete despite not really being from a territory of the commonwealth so it's clearly not an issue for them.

If Ireland had never left the commonwealth no doubt we'd all be watching it and enjoying winning loads of medals across the various disciplines (because, being honest, they're easy to win at the Commonwealths relative to other sporting events).

Dubh Geannain

Is this how you're supposed to run 800m now? 😂

Out hard for 350m. Cruise for the next half a lap. Finish hard. Amazing stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApUqdNG88Dk

yerwanthere123

Had no idea this thread existed, thought I was the only one caring about the Commonwealths, talking to mainly myself in the main thread 😬😂

Some very good races, and I must make more of an effort to watch it in 2026. McColgan winning the 10k was absolutely the highlight for me. What a moment, what a crowd, what an athlete and what grit to hold on and kick in the home straight! Phenemonal.

ariana`

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447501#Comment_119447501

Haha who can blame you, I don't think there is really enough athletics talk to merit multiple threads. Eilish McColgan in the 10000m was my highlight too. I'd say I've replayed the final straight about 50 times since, it was just incredible. Delighted to see her get her 5000m silver also and Laura Muir and Ciara McGeean in the 1500m. The whole games was brilliant. The atmosphere just seemed to be electric over there with packed stadiums. I watched a good few field events, diving & the women's hockey as well where the crowd was equally as vocal as they were in Alexander Stadium. Super event.

yerwanthere123

Thread for Munich here.