Athletics 2024 (Mod note #869)

I would disagree that we had four realistic medal chances; I'd have thought Healy, Coscoran and Lavin were all outside medal chances.

I felt Coscoran didnt look quite right in last nights race - if you look at it, with 300m to go he was alongside the Belgian who eventually came second, but Coscoran just didnt have the acceleration.

Lavin was clearly disappointed with her run. Healy will benefit from having reached a championships final for the first time.

Overall a fantastic championship.

I'll put it differently - without Adeleke we are coming 5th or 6th in the Euros. With Adeleke but without Phil Healy, we are probably coming 4th or maybe 3rd. Without Lauren Cadden maybe we dont make the final. They are all important.

Yeah, I said a while back that I think there is no chance of Adeleke running the mixed relay at the Olympics. She is a genuine Gold medal contender so that is where her concentration will be. It will be interesting to see what teams are fielded at the Olympics, will the Dutch have Bol? I know she did it at Worlds last year, but Olympics are a different ball game. The mixed relay at the start of the programme is a real conundrum for a lot of individual medal contenders so teams could be very different than Euros. Only the US have strength in depth to use their weaker athletes and still win.

Whilst the success of the past week has been amazing, I hope everyone doesn't have unrealistic expectations come the Olympics.

At face value, you can't just invest in someone between now and the games. The hay is mostly in the barn and it's up to others to unseat her from the relay. McCrory already does that by way of ranking. And then there's Manning, and Harrison to think about.

It will all be decided, based on nationals. Apart from Adeleke and Mawdsley who have outright big Qs for the 400m flat. Everyone else's place is up for grabs.

Damn. That's hard to gauge. I don't think she will break 50. I was searching there for which Welsh lad ran the 43 at the commonwealth games an age ago. Elias or Williams. Can't find it. My point is that last legs do seem to bring something out in people. So for Sharlene, I'd love it to be 50.2. But it's hard to look past your 50.5.

I reckon that only 49 gets you into this Olympic final. Or at least 6/7 of the eight will have 49.

I looked a bit sideways when I read Rhashidats coaches comments. It's not that their is disharmony but he's a bit off in coming out like that. At the moment, I'm figuring her for bronze.

I wouldnt call it harsh per se - he is saying in simple terms that there was an agreed plan and she didnt execute - which logically makes sense. I dont think he is criticizing her for winning a silver - he is saying she didnt follow the plan. To your other point, I understood the race plan was specifically designed to force Kacsmarek (and Klaver) to respond to a particularly fast first 200m.

Would be interesting to know if Floreal and Gary Ryan talk to each other at all, given how close the athletes are now.

Great advice for her though that this stuff is part of the package that comes with being successful and she just needs to get on with it and focus on the job.

It is hard but everyone successful in the public eye will have loads of people trying to knock them down. Sonia O Sullivan had to deal with plenty of nasty stuff in her day which would have been much much worse in the current social media climate.