by Stuart Weir
Our senior writer for Europe, Stuart Weir, is writing daily for RunBlogRun. We were able to see each other for the first time since Doha 2019, and it was nice to catch up with my friend from across the pond. This is Stuart Weir’s assessment for Team GBR on day 3.
GB assessment
The championships are a moving target, so my assessment of team GB after three days may be a bit dated by the time you are reading. The context is that a haul of 4-8 medals is the range we are looking at and that 6 would be a good result. At the same time, let us remember that the medal count is far from the whole story with PRs, solid performances, the quality of the opposition, etc, all significant factors.
Then there are the human hard-luck stories like Morgan Lake testing positive for Covid and Holly Bradshaw injuring herself when a pole snapped.
Dina Asher-Smith ran a GB record of 10.83 in the 100m but still finished behind the Jamaican trio. Dina’s honest assessment was: “I was really happy to have done the run that I did from lane 8, I really couldn’t fault it, but I am so gutted that it didn’t get me on the podium. It was so close. That’s just champs, isn’t it? It was a good run from me, a very good run from me, but unfortunately, it was 4th but again, the caliber of the final was amazing, and it was hard to get in the final”.
Darryl Neita ran 10.97 in the semi-final and missed out on a place in the final by one-hundredth of a second, a fine performance but in an event where the standard is so high and margins so small.
At the time of writing, Jake Wightman and Josh Kerr are in the final of the men’s 1500. Neil Gourlay missed the final by one-hundredth of a second. Laura Muir is in the women’s 1500 final. All excellent performances, but who can turn an opportunity into a medal?
Eilish McColgan’s 10th in the 10K was a solid performance, but she wanted more! “I’m obviously disappointed to come 10th again, I think this is my fourth 10th place at world champs, and I’m getting better every year, I’m getting faster every year, and I’m running PBs every year, but it’s still not where I want to be”. The backstory that few know is that she has had illness and injury to contend with this year too,
In the men’s 110h Joshua Zeller, in his first senior championship, finished fifth, while Andrew Pozzi and David King failed to reach the final. Zeller commented: “Coming into the champs, my goal was to beat my seeding. I think I was ninth or tenth coming in, and every round, I ran the best I could to achieve that. So to come out and run in the final, I knew I’d already beaten my seeding, so I’m really pleased. When I got to the final, I thought maybe I could steal a medal here with the circumstances. But to be fifth in the world, I outperformed my seeding, so I achieved my goal”. Pozzi, a former World Indoor champion, commented: “I felt really, really good; I felt the best I have felt all season. I didn’t really get the best start, but then I picked up really well, but it was about hurdle 3; I was so close to it, and I was trying to stay attacking and not back off but I clipped too many”.
Imagine you are Alex Haydock-Wilson, running in the 400m prelims in your first World Championship. In the back of your mind is a feeling of disappointment about your run in the mixed relay. You set off and after 50 meters, the runner on your inside passes you. You freeze? You give up? You try to hold him off? No, Alex ran his own race and finished third and progressed. As he said about the athlete who overtook him – Wayde van Niekerk – “He is the world record-holder, so he is allowed to do things like that!”
