The Official Athletics Thread

[El Guapo]

Start lists out for Lievin. Jacob is going in the 1500m.

The 3k is still the race Katir, Girma and Fisher.

Womens 1500m has Tsegay against Frewanyi Hailu.

The rest of the meet looks great. Stars all over. I think its from 7 on YouTube tonight

Edit: its starting at 20:00 Irish time

 

[El Guapo]

Girma won the 3k showdown at Lievin. 7:23 in a negative split. The 3rd rabbit Tom Elmer jumped out early so he had to do it himself.

Katir will be a force in the summer.he went 7:34 in the 3k last near and ended up with a bronze in the 1500m. he just went 7:24 at Lievin

Someone needs to coach Tsegay into not hammering the first 400m. The 800 split was 2:04..no way she was holding that.

Great to hear conformation JINGY and Warholm are both running Euro indoors.

World Cross is on Saturday morning frok Brathurst Australia. The course looks hard about 300m of elevation. There is a tyre chicane section and a three way split though a vinyard. Runners need to pick 'Pinot Noir', 'Chardonnay' or 'Sharaz'. Apparently Sharaz is the racing line.

Mens race could be a classic. Full squads from Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia. I'll plumb for Cheptagai. .

Chebet vs Letesenbet Gidet in the women's. Hard to see past Gidey here.

There are zero Irish entries.

Oz should win the 4x2k. McSwein, Hoare, Caldwell and Hull

Womens race on at 06:30 tomorrow with the mens at 07:30 on YouTube. Probably on beeb red button too

Irish Indoor Nationals also on. The big question is can Mageean solo to a 3k standard of 8:48. Tough ask for anyone

 

[El Guapo]

Unbelievable finish in the womens Senior Race at Brathurst.

I'll say nothing. Watch it.

The course looks brutal

 

[Carmona]

Amazing alright. When I watched it a second time, you could see she was beginning to struggle, quite a bit of grimacing for an athlete of her calibre. Was she disqualified, Guapo, or not? Course looked tough, or messy, with a few of the turns and whatnot. The Men's elite was like a 10,000 mts Olympic Final!

 

[Carmona]

Guapo, i just turned on the indoor Nationals there on YouTube. Jesus, the seeming advantage of being in the outside lane is ridiculous. Almost every heat of the 200s was won by the outside lane but by crazy margins. Could there be some weird kind of camber thing coming into play there or what? Just now same result, they're winning by 6/8/10 metres in a fupping 200 metre race!!

 

[El Guapo]

Amazing alright. When I watched it a second time, you could see she was beginning to struggle, quite a bit of grimacing for an athlete of her calibre. Was she disqualified, Guapo, or not? Course looked tough, or messy, with a few of the turns and whatnot. The Men's elite was like a 10,000 mts Olympic Final!

Yeah DQ for outside assistance. The mens race was class as well. Real day for kiplimo

Sonia was there wearing Ugandan kit i don't know if she was helping out with their federation or if she is just got given a nice jacket

Jess Hull in the mixed relay put in some leg for the Aussies

 

[El Guapo]

Guapo, i just turned on the indoor Nationals there on YouTube. Jesus, the seeming advantage of being in the outside lane is ridiculous. Almost every heat of the 200s was won by the outside lane but by crazy margins. Could there be some weird kind of camber thing coming into play there or what? Just now same result, they're winning by 6/8/10 metres in a fupping 200 metre race!!

I don't know to be honest. Best guess is they're seeded to the outside. I know if you're tall outside is an advantage and lane 1 is so tight they don't use it in the big meets.

There isn't a tight spec on the banking either. The Fastest tracks have asymmetric banking (I presume it's a gentle uphill and steeper downhill but don't know) but must tracks are built with symmetric turns. I've no idea what the NIA has

 

[El Guapo]

Caught a bit of the indoors after the fact. Logged on to see if Mageean made it. She had said she was going to try for the 3k standard after the Boston grand prix at nationals but she wasn't there.

The race that transpired was fierce entertaining. It's Bout an hour into the day 2 feed. Well worth a watch.

There are still plenty of anomalies with the qualification system. For the 3k indoors only steeple and 5k times counted so for the likes of Mageean who was injured this indoor season qualifying by ranking was close to impossible.

The mens 3k was good too another Griggs McEllhenny showdown. McEllhenny just nipped into the rankings after a few withdrawals so will be in Istanbul with Brian Fay. Good news. Qualification window closed yesterday

Olatunde went sub 6.6. Jack Raferty went 46 37. So misses out on AutoQ by 2/100s. He's only 21 so future is bright but is about 5 spots outside the rankings.

The womens 400m relay qualified for Istanbul on individual times too. Becker looking good for the win.

Femke Bol Broke the 41 year old 400m indoor record. Shoes or no getting rid of the GDR records is a good thing.

 

[El Guapo]

2 legs left of the indoor tour.

Madrid tomorrow and Birmingham Saturday.

Both have some decent races in store.

Madrid is all about the 1500m. It's a cracker. Naguse off American records at 1500, mile and 3000m in the last 3 weeks taking on Mo Katir off his would've been a WR 3k last week. Maria Garcia Romo was 4th in the world, Adel Mechaal and Grant Fisher on his Euro tour is running too.

Mark English is going in the 800m, Sarah Lavan in the 60h and Chris O'Donnell in the 400m and Nick Griggs in the 3k

Birmingham Saturday is intriguing because Josh Kerr was a late addition the 1500m. You'd expect him to win easily but honestly the only reason i can see that he'd come back for this is that he's planning for Euro indoors next week.

So it'd be him after millrose, Katir after Lievin v's an undercooked Jacob. I'm not sure Jacob would win that.

The rest of the Birmingham field is good too Neil Gourley is in great form beat George Mills at the British champs but the race will be quick so could be set up for the Irish trio of Coscoran, McCann and Griggs to run PBs.

Tsegay and Koko in the 3k should see the European record go down too.

All the NCAA athletes including Adeleke and Fay withdrew from Euros today McEllhenny definitely made it.

 

[El Guapo]

Nice win for English in the 800m B race in madrid. He's rounding into good form prior to the Euros. He hasn't got 1:44 speed but you never know in the 800m like Naguse won a very solid 1500m from Katir in 3:33 mid Lavin made the final ran a PB 7.95 in the semi.