IAAF World Championships Thread - GOLD FOR HEFFERNAN

Chivito550 wrote: »

Gold for Rob Heffernan! Gold for Ireland! http://www.therunningreview.com/2013/08/14/heffernan-claims-historic-victory-in-moscow/

14/08/1983 Eamon Coughlan won the 5,000m in Helsinki
14/08/2013 Rob Heffernan won the 50 KM walk in Moscow.

This date is also my Birthday, I was a lad of 16 when I Watched Eamon celebrate with 120m to go knowing he was about to win a World title, felt like a 16 year -old again when Rob came into the stadium this morning, punching the air and waving to the Irish supporters on his way to his World title.

I have been lucky enough to be still involved in athletics throughout that time, as an athlete back in 1983 to being a coach and an official now.
I have seen Rob compete many times over the years and know Ireland's other 50k walker Brendan Boyce fairly well (New pb for him also today and has been training with and coached by Rob this year) have shouted them on during there competitions, can't speak now as my voice has gone completely.

I know there are people who think the walk is not a true athletic event but no-one can question the amount of hard work, conditioning, commitment and dedication these lads and lasses put into their event, hats off to Rob, Brendan and all our walkers doing our country proud.

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

Remember 2006 - Derval O Rourke won gold in the World Indoors, silver in the European outdoors yet the panel gave the award to Henry Shefflin :rolleyes: Remember being outraged at the time after Derval winning a World title!

Yes but you have to remember that Henry has 9 All Ireland titles and Derval has only 9 ...wait a minute...

Not sure how many titles they shared back in 2006, I suspect Derval was ahead. In fairness, and with respect to other athletes, there wasn't too much other home based competition but you can't exactly say there was 31 other counties offering competition to Kilkenny Hurling. There must be about 10 or 12 max counties that play the game and could make a stab at winning what is in global terms a local competition. It was a populist decision similar to voting Padraig Harrington as our greatest sportsperson of all time a number of years ago. BTW I like both Hurling and Golf. If you know athletics and other endurance sports I think you know how tough it is to succeed. You can fluke in many sports, particularly ball sports and of course luck comes into all sports too but you can't fluke running 12.65 for the 100 metre hurdles.

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

Remember 2006 - Derval O Rourke won gold in the World Indoors, silver in the European outdoors yet the panel gave the award to Henry Shefflin :rolleyes: Remember being outraged at the time after Derval winning a World title!

also remember at the time george hook not even knowing who derval was....

backgreen wrote: »

it was the weakest olympic long jump competition ever...cant see the guy ever winning a major championships again..mike powell never won gold and he could jump 8.95, rutherford would need a rocket to do it

Powell never got near 8.95 at the Olympics, though. If he had he would have won Gold. Although he was unfortunate to be around at the same time as Carl Lewis.

Rutherford won his Olympic Gold by beating everyone else, in a non-boycott year. Not much more you can do.

Truman Burbank wrote: »

Well done Rob, (Marian et Al). Now I'm going back into hibernation til The Olympics.

Whaaa??/ What about the European Championships next year?? :P I'm hoping that a friend of mine could get close to qualifying, if not we might head out there anyway!

henry who? another hero in his own parish.

ecoli wrote: »

Saladino only won in Beijing by 8.34. Again you can only beat who is in front of you and bar the absence of Phillips it was a full roster. I am not saying that it was a spectacular turn around of career that was instigated by him it was more an acknowledgement to his coach who has coached more Olympians and World Champions across a host of events and in my opinion is the number one all round coach of all time (coaching many of the worlds best across a host of desciplines)

Long Jump has very few rising starts that are going to blow away the field like Carl Lewis or Powell did in the past so it is likely that a few also ran (or jumped in this case) athletes turn up a few surprise results at major championships

Salidino best is 8.73 up there with the best and one of the most graceful LJs
rutherford's win was a bit like Foinavon winning the Grand National many years ago

Donegal winning team of the year last year over the Irish Cross Country team who won European gold and then went on to be the top European team at the Worlds could be another one thrown into the mix

Getoffmytrain wrote: »

The bigger odds were still there Monday, so they must not have copped on
as Kirdyapkin was ruled out last Friday. I'd say a fair few bets were landed.

If a favourite is a non-starter in a race, then rule 4 can come into effect. The bookies reduce the odds of bets made before the fav pulled out. Dont think it is in effect for rob's race though.

rebel girl 15 wrote: »

I'm absolutely shattered, looking forward to Heffernans interview tomorrow!

WHat channel is that on? Looked at the BBC scheduling earlier but it doesnt appear to be on the planner at 10.15, there is something totally unrelated to sport!

Hold on, is it 10.15am local time? That would make it 7.15am here

Yeah, its 7.15am alright, I saw the info on the athletics Ireland twitter which they later clarified.

robinph wrote: »

Some shoddy editing of a runners quote after the 800m heats by the beeb.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/23712919


So the BBC editor decided that the runner saying with 2 to go wasn't clear enough so they edited their quote to add the word "laps". Whoever did that really shouldn't be working on the sports desk. The runner clearly meant 2 hundred.

Been fixed!