European Athletics Championships

[therock67]

Apart from their interference with the start times of Home and Away, has anyone any opinion on how these have gone? To be honest I've found them all a bit boring really. You know that for the large part, the best people in the world at the respective events aren't there so there isn't that much quality around. That said the Portugese lad who won the 100m looked superb.

Bit disappointed with the Irish reactions again. Gillick got to the 400m final and finished last by a country mile - Sonia O'Sullivan-esque. Interviewed afterwards he said that he'd just had a bad day but he hadn't been affected by the crowd or anything. The panel were reluctant to criticise but they did suggest he'd bottled it a bit. Either way, this guy won the indoor championships last season and finished second in his semi-final so there was no reason he should have been beaten by such a distance.

Last night there was heaps of praise for Liam Reale who finished 8th out of 12 in the 800m final. This time everyone was commenting on how well he'd performed and how delighted he'd be, and Reale himself was thrilled with his run. I couldn't understand why. From what I was hearing the race was won in longer time than his personal best - so why was he so thrilled with finishing 8th. These are the European Championships for Chrissakes. If we can't get medals at this level we have no hope when it gets more competitive.

[whyohwhy]

Derval O'Rourke through to semi final after this morning.

I think the athletics analysts (kiernan, coghlan) are too close to the athletics world and athletes to be too critical, unlike say the rugby or soccer commentators who are distant to the players they analyse.

Gillick trains in UCD, Kiernan has something to do with UCD (i think) so he's not going to criticise him as he probably sees him every week. Then again the runner, Kiernan slated after the last Olympics (forget his name), was from UCD but he went to town on him! and the runner reacted on live TV, calling Kiernan a slogger (great viewing).

Obikwelu was the portugese runner who won the 100m, used to run for Nigeria, then went to Portugal. Got a medal in the olympics too.

Druggie Dwain Chambers was in that final too

[iamthelaw]

admin said:

Last night there was heaps of praise for Liam Reale who finished 8th out of 12 in the 800m final. This time everyone was commenting on how well he'd performed and how delighted he'd be, and Reale himself was thrilled with his run. I couldn't understand why. From what I was hearing the race was won in longer time than his personal best - so why was he so thrilled with finishing 8th. These are the European Championships for Chrissakes. If we can't get medals at this level we have no hope when it gets more competitive.

In fairness to Reale, his personal best is 3:38.65 but that was a one-off, I don't think he's ever beaten the qualifying time for the Europeans of 3:41 apart from that. He must have been pleased to run 3:41.97 to get the last qualifying place from his semi, & I'd say just to be in the final competing and not be tailed off would have left him understandably "thrilled with his run". The final was a slow first 800 and long sprint finish, & I don't think Reale could be expected to match his PB in a tactical race like that. And his times in the final & semi were both close to his PB excluding that one-off 3:38.

But I agree that the media have been unduly positive. I think they're worried that the audience will lose interest, as there isn't any equivalent of Sonia to build the week around, so they figure they had better make the most of any decent performances in the meantime.

True what you say about the standard at the Worlds being so much higher than the Europeans; the guy who won the 1500 was pointing out that this could well be his last medal for just that reason.

[steamboatsam]

haven't tuned in at all and have absolutely no interest in doing so which is strange as i used to love watching track & field when i was younger, would be glued to the worlds, europeans, olympics and especially those golden league meetings that used to be held in zurich, berlin, brussels and other european cities - they brought all the top athletes together (obviously cos of the money involved) and produced some great races.

i guess my interest waned with the emergence of so many dopers and the retirement of Michael Johnson, the greatest athlete ever imo. i've never seen anybody make sprinting look so easy and graceful, even with that unusual gait.

[bandage]

No interest at all in watching running or any of that lark. Where's the ball? Where's the hurley? What? You mean there is none? Running for the sake of running. Walk or get a taxi for fook sake.