by Stuart Weir
Women Pole Vault medalists, Katie Nageotte, Sandi Morris, Tina Sutej, photo by Getty Images for World Athletics
Sandi Morris, photo by Getty Images for World Athletics
Cyrena Samba-Mayela takes the W 60m hurdles, photo by Getty Images for World Athletics
Belgrade: The good the bad and the ugly
The Good
The arena. Don’t think I have been to a better one. Great view of the whole track.
So much high-quality action. Not sure I have ever seen a better session than Saturday evening which every event seemed to surpass the previous one in excellence and excitement.
Three world records – Grant Holloway, Mondo Duplantis, and Yulimar Rojas
The happiest winner? So many but Cyrena Samba-Mayela takes the prize by a whisker. A surprise winner, beaming from ear to ear.
Best field event battle – women’s pole vault. Olympic champion, Katie Nageotte made the running (made the jumping) but Sandi Morris, defending champion came through to win
Great to see Hannah England make a seamless transition from track to commentary.
The starter – unnoticed – in contrast to the chaos of false starts in the 2017 European Indoors in the same arena.
Jenny Selman made the GB team for the first time, aged 31, in the 800 and missed the final by one-hundredth of a second
Personal highlights
Yaroslava Mahuchikh winning the high jump and the reaction to the Ukrainian national anthem.
Sharing an elevator with Raspberry Lee, the mascot.
The Bad
Nothing really bad.
Shocks
Ryan Crouser, WIC Pre event presser, photo by Getty Images for World Athletics
World record holder and Olympic Champion, Ryan Crouser was beaten by Darlan Romani (Brazil) but if the favorites always won it would be boring.
The embarrassing
The British team coming close to a no-medals weekend
The technology – Wifi unusably slow for the first day. Cabled internet never worked. Monitors, which started working only on the third day.
The DQ of Jessie Knight for stepping on the infield when everyone but the officials could see that she had been pushed off the track. She was re-instated.
The unfortunate
The British team – losing key athletes to injury
The disappointing
The British team
The crowd – most sessions barely half-full.
The surprises
My hotel serving Egg, bacon, and crab for breakfast!
Stadium announcer “Grant Holloway, untouchable for years over the hurdles”. Really?Tokyo?
