by Larry Eder
Jamaica’s 4x400m, gold medal winning team, photo by PhotoRun.net
The world championships had moments of ecstasy and moments of agony. Plus, everything in between. The mens’ 1,500 meters was won in the last fifteen meters, and the women’s 4×400 meter relay was won in the very last steps.
EME News’ Alfons Juck provided, as he does every day, insights into the sport of global athletics.
BEIJING FLASH BACK
BEIJING (CHN): The coach to world 400m champion Wayde van Niekerk of South Africa is 73 year old Anna “Tannie Ans” Botha, report City Press. The University of the Free State (Kovsies) head coach said that van Niekerk’s world medal was planned three years ago when she formulated a plan with the athlete and his parents. Previously, Botha coached Thuso Mpuang to silver and bronze medals (2009) at the World Student Games.
BEIJING (CHN): World 50kmW champion Matej Toth of Slovakia will not compete at next year’s World Race Walking Cup in Cheboksary, report insidethegames. The 32 year old said that this is due to two factors, the events proximity to the Olympic Games and the amount of doping scandals in Russian walking. Toth said that he believes that “Russian walkers could be very good in future even without doping.” “They are really strong and I wish they realised that we can have great performances and strong result competing clean.”
BEIJING (CHN): Ashton Eaton and Dafne Schippers were the best male and female performers respectively at the world championships, according to All-Athletics. Eaton improved his decathlon world record to 9045 which earned him a performance score of 1601. The next best male performer was triple jump champion Christian Taylor (1593), who was just 1 point better than Usain Bolt’s 200m performance (1592). Bolt featured three times in the top 20; he is ranked 5th for his 100m performance and was a member of the Jamaican 4x100m team who are ranked 6th. The best European male performer was the 8th ranked Sergey Shubenkov of Russia, world champion in the 110mH. Schippers’ 200m win of 21.63 (0.2) scored 1576 points to top the women’s performance list. Just three points behind were the Jamaican 4x100m team. The third best female performer was hammer world champion Anita WÅ‚odarczyk of Poland (1569).
MINSK (BLR): Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has sent his best greetings to the country’s two world medallists, Marina Arzamasova and Alina Talay. “The entire country was watching your performance. You have become the best on the planet and today the whole world hails your success. “You have proved once again that a Belarusian woman is a pillar of our society, the beauty and pride of our Motherland.”
NAIROBI (KEN): Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has congratulated the Kenyan athletes who competed at the world championships, report The Star. “On behalf of an adoring and grateful nation and my Government, I congratulate our athletics team for bravely going out, conquering valiantly and returning home in triumph.”
BEIJING (CHN): Usain Bolt and his fellow members of Jamaica’s victorious men’s 4×100 meres relay team were presented with their medals here by Donna Prather Williams, granddaughter of the late and legendary four-times Olympic champion Jesse Owens. The granddaughter, and Owens’ middle daughter Beverly Owens Prather, are in Beijing to commemorate the signing of an agreement between the Jesse Owens Foundation and the International Association of Athletics Federations’ Social Responsibility programme, Athletics for a Better World, and to publicise the forthcoming feature film about their illustrious relative, entitled Race. Informs insidethegames.
BEIJING (CHN): The fastest 4×400 m relay splits were produced on the men side by Belgian Kevin Borlee 43.58 as third runner, Briton Martyn Rooney 43.97 as anchor, LaShawn Merritt 44.18 as anchor and Lalonde Gordon of Trinidad 44.1 on the second leg. Among women Allyson Felix as us second leg runner 47.72 with Novlene Williams-Mills 49.14 as Jamaican anchor, 49.4 by Shericka Jackson of Jamaica on the second leg and also 49.93 by US anchor Francena McCorory and 49.95 by French anchor Floria Guei.
BEIJING (CHN): For triple Jump the hop-step-jump phases for example by Christian Taylor’s 18.21 was comprised of phases of 5.96 / 5.84 / 6.41. For the men’s final long jump final Greg Rutherford was 8.7cm before the board on his 8.29, then just 1.5cm on his 8.41. Fabrice Lapierre’s 8.24 had a 5.6cm gap. Poor Jeff Henderson took off 27.5cm before the board on his only valid jump (7.95). For women, Tiana Bartoletta’s 7.14 was 2.4cm and Shara Proctor had 7.07/10.5cm & 7.01/6.1cm. Therefore Proctor effectively jumped a little further than the winner (7.175 vs 7.164). Spanovic 7.01 had a 8.3cm gap. Those fateful no-jumps: Marquis Dendy r3 of qA was by just 2cm and Katarina Johnson-Thompson on r3 of Heptathlon gA was only 1cm (that jump was measured at 6.82).
BEIJING (CHN): Great Britain’s sprinters have held clear-the-air talks in a bid to defuse simmering tensions within the men’s 4×100 metres relay squad. Informs PA. The team held meetings with team management on Saturday night and on Sunday in a bid to draw a line under the unseemly episode. British Athletics performance director Neil Black said it was important to understand Kilty and Ellington gave their initial reaction when “high on emotion at the time of severe disappointment”.
BEIJING (CHN): Top magazines were similarly succesful in their predictions for winners. Track and Field News had 12 men and 12 women winners right (24 out of 47) and Athletics Weekly 12 men also and 11 women (in total 23). TFN had 7 later men winners (Kemboi, Yego, Lopez, Shubenkov, Bett, Ghebrslassie and Barber) not in top 3 and 3 women later winners (Arzamasava, Jepkemoi, D. Williams) not in top 3. AW also 3 women (Arzamasava, D. Williams, Molitor) and 6 men not in top 3 (Ghebrselassie, Shubenkov, Bett, Drouin, Barber, Lopez) and they were the winners.
