by Stuart Weir
DeAnna Price, hammer throw, photo by PhotoRun.net
Yohan Blake, Jimmy Vicaut, 100m, photo by Photo Run
This is column 1, on day 2 by Stuart Weir. The subject was the heats on day 1.
Approaching heats
Today’s program consisted solely of heats with not a final in sight. In an era of one-off races, often with a pacemaker, running a tactical championship race may be unusual for an athlete. Running three races in three days is another unusual situation to navigate. The sole purpose of a heat on the track or a qualifying competition in the field, is to reach the next round. Thus an outstanding performance, like a PR or even a world record, can be seen as a waste – right thing, wrong time.
Looking how the qualifying competitions unfold, we can see a number of interesting things. In another post, I commented on how the main protagonists in the men’s 100m had seemed to want to set out their stall with an impressive performance in qualifying. Similarly in the women’s steeplechase, world record holder, Beatrice Chepkoech, won her heat in the fastest time, while defending champion Emma Coburn was second in another fast race, both putting down a marker.
There were six heats of the women’s 800m. It is hard not to find oneself thinking about the absent Castor Semenya and Francine Niyonsaba. Whatever one thinks about that, it does make the event intriguingly open.
Ajee Wilson and Raevyn Rogers (both USA), Natoya Goule (Jamaica), Winnie Nanyondo (Uganda), Nataliya Prishchepa (Ukraine) and Renelle Lamote (France)were heat winners. Not that it really means much, Winnie Nanyondo was fastest. Former World Champion, Eunice Sum, (Kenya) qualified only as a “fastest loser”. En passant, isn’t “fastest loser” an unfortunate way of describing the category.
Field events tend to set a standard for automatic qualifying with a backstop of the top 12 if 12 do not reach the automatic qualifying mark. Inevitably, some automatic qualifying standards seem harder than others.
In the women’s high jump, 8 women achieved the automatic standard of 1.94.
In the hammer throw, nine women past the qualifying standard of 72m.
In the men’s long jump, on the other hand, only Juan Miguel Echevarria reached the automatic standard.
In the women’s pole vault 17 athletes reach the automatic standard of 4.60m , three requiring just one vault, and 7 achieving it without any failures. At face value, it seems that the men’s longer standard was significantly more demanding than the women’s pole-vault.
What makes the whole thing fascinating is to see whether those who performed exceptionally well in in qualifying can reproduce or better that form when the medals are at stake or if they may, so to speak, and wasted their powder.
