Smoke wrote:..What's wrong with the haircut?! We like it. ........Sally is far from an achiever, she's very talented, one of the fastest hurdlers in the world and it shows. love how John handled these three races and won. Now onto the meat of the season!
Smoke, the haircut comment was just a bit of bullshitting, so don't take that seriously.
I think you got the wrong end of the stick about Sally. Sure she is talented but I've detected a certain view in articles about her lately that seem to imply this is the primary reason she is successful. My view is that what makes her different from equally talented athletes is the rigour of her training and coaching approach.
Talent without achievement is nothing and I've seen plenty of it wasted, so calling her an achiever is not a slight but a compliment, at least from my point of view. Sorry if it seems the opposite - my writing is upsetting everybody today.
I agree with you about John. It was good to see him do so well. I've always supported him and never understood why so many seem to dislike him despite his achievements. Roll on those 44s!
As for missing a catchup, I'll PM you and jlt later about that.
I guess I'm more a track guy El Toro but I like to follow good field event competitions; you're right of course about the lack of updates re progress (after say three jumps)......that's a standard issue/problem in our sport. They did of course many announcements such as "Frayne's jump of 8.00 the first 8m jump of competition, it takes him into the lead" etc.
Our sport so reliant on the conditions, given a warm, still night (as we had the week before eve day) it could/would have been so much better and I've no doubt Cole runs 48-high, Sally goes under 23, Stephenson runs 45-low and Frayne does 8.25 (not to mention Asbel running 3:32 and Rudisha 1:43...) etc. The big thing we missed yesterday was not having a fit and in form Mitchell jumping against Frayne; could have been special.
I heard pretty dire comments about the track/facility etc but apart from the wind (seemingly it is quite exposed) is it really so bad? I quite like it.....
jlt, the treatment of field events only annoys me so much because the technology is available to provide live results.
The data is trivial and now mobile internet access is trivial as well, so it should be easy to work with web updates, or better, sit there with a smart phone app that beeps a different sound when the different athletes you have marked to watch are ready to jump/throw then see results, change in place between rounds, call up their stats etc It's a nice dream....
I agree with you about the possible improvements in performance with better weather - at least there wasn't hail like there was one year
I think a lot of negativity about the track from Melbournians is due to most of them believing they should still be at Olympic Park. The decision to kick them out for football was bad enough but was made worse with some of the early government proposals which included lights that would not have been TV standard. I'm not sure if the back straight grandstand was going to be as big as it is now or if it was planned at all.
So people are a bit cynical about the government boasting about a "world class facility" when they spent as little as possible to get rid of the sport from it historic location and to shut people up.
Whether the track is compromised will depend on your event and preferences but the orientation was set because of the existing football grandstand and general lack of space due to the Grand Prix requirements. It might have been better East-West for cross winds on the straights with PV inside the curve to still allow tail winds for safer jumping.
Despite all that history, it is bright and shiny and new and you can walk all the way around without complicated manouvres, so that's good.
Congrats to Jake Stein, the World Youth Champs star, who set a NJR for U20 Decathlon over the weekend in Melbourne. Given the winds, he's likely to up this score before too long.
Jake Stein broke his national U20 decathlon record in Sydney today. His 7886 score places him #7 on the all-time junior list. 17 year old Ced Dubler also did well with 7504 in second.
Great day for Australian men's discus throwing, with Benn Harradine improving his AR to 67.53 in Townsville and Scott Martin also throwing an A-qualifier (65.63) in Maui. The men's 4x100 team have inched closer to an Olympics berth too, running 38.84 in Japan this week, with another race to come at the Kawasaki meet tomorrow.
Oustanding result for Ben, go to be the first record for Townsville.
Great to see he is coming into his peak and is over some of the isssues from this summer.
Got a photo standing next to him at the Sydney meet. I am 180cm and 107kg and solid (still compete), looked small next to Ben (remind me never to stand next to Harting).
Good luck to Scott, three discus throwers would be awesome.( be positive)
Vault-emort wrote:Jake Stein broke his national U20 decathlon record in Sydney today. His 7886 score places him #7 on the all-time junior list. 17 year old Ced Dubler also did well with 7504 in second.
Not quite on the world class level (yet), but Sam McEntee (Perth) is showing tremendous range for Villanova in his first full collegiate season. He split sub 1:50 last week on an 800 at the Penn Relays last week, ran a 3:57.X mile indoors and then ran away with the conference 5000m in his debut tonight. Kid's a stud.
More A-qualifiers for London over the last couple of days:
Steve Hooker vaulted 5.72 in an officially-sanctioned meet in a Perth warehouse. Ryan Gregson ran 3.33.92 at the Doha but still finished outside the top 10 over 1500. Dale Stevenson (SP) threw 20.63 in South Carolina.
Men's 4x4 team consisting of Solomon, Offereins, Cole and Thomas ran 3.01.5 last night in Daegu, giving them a good chance of securing a berth in London. No splits available but Solomon in particular looked fantastic running the lead leg and might go close to an individual qualifier if he can get into some good races over the next few weeks.
Well done to Kath Mitchell for her PB 64.34 for 3rd (on countback) in Ostrava overnight. Pretty much guaranteed an Olympic berth now and great to see a near veteran in career best form when so many other similarly talented athletes might have given it away by now.
Love it when these things happen in an Olympic year.
Today (Saturday a good piece in the Australian's magazine, on Sally Pearson), no new info, but thought the writer captured the "suffer no fools" part of Sally's personality, and her competiveness (flashback to her 400 relay run in Delhi)
Tamsyn Manou did some greAt whinging about the apparent roughness of the Ostrava 800. The race actually didn't look too bad, but she always needs excuses. Pity there wasn't a 4x400 relay...
Tamsyn Manou did some great whinging about the apparent roughness of the Ostrava 800. The race actually didn't look too bad, but she always needs excuses. Pity there wasn't a 4x400 relay...
Tamsyn Manou did some great whinging about the apparent roughness of the Ostrava 800. The race actually didn't look too bad, but she always needs excuses. Pity there wasn't a 4x400 relay...
jackbean wrote:Tamsyn Manou did some great whinging about the apparent roughness of the Ostrava 800. The race actually didn't look too bad, but she always needs excuses. Pity there wasn't a 4x400 relay...
jackbean wrote:Tamsyn Manou did some great whinging about the apparent roughness of the Ostrava 800. The race actually didn't look too bad, but she always needs excuses. Pity there wasn't a 4x400 relay...
jackbean wrote:Tamsyn Manou did some great whinging about the apparent roughness of the Ostrava 800. The race actually didn't look too bad, but she always needs excuses. Pity there wasn't a 4x400 relay...
Well, whiny, repetitive bitches are obviously thick on the ground around here as well....
If I'm not mistaken, Mitchell's 64.34 makes her #3 Aussie all-time behind Louise Currey (silver 1996 OG) and Joanna Stone (World Cup winner in 1998) and now puts her ahead of Kim Mickle (6th 2011 WC, preselected for London).
The men's 4x100 team had another hit-out in Taiwan yesterday but failed to break 39 seconds, so it remains to be seen whether their recent efforts in Japan will be enough to see them qualify for London. None of the boys ran quicker than 10.3 in the individual 100 either, including Josh Ross, who looked like he was on the verge of qualifying after his windy 10.16 the other week.
Meanwhile, Steffensen runs tonight in Hengelo and Renshaw, Gregson, Abdi and Buckman are running in Rabat.
What's the latest on Jana Pittman? First I heard she quit track and switches to rowing (which I didn't like at all), now I see something that she will try 800m in the future. Definitely would be good to watch her on track.
Cos while in Oz you go straight to med school after high school, you need an undergrad degree first in the USA. At 19, he would have had to have been on an accelerated program. I assume of course that he is a very smart dude. What's the story?
pakillo wrote:What's the latest on Jana Pittman? First I heard she quit track and switches to rowing (which I didn't like at all), now I see something that she will try 800m in the future. Definitely would be good to watch her on track.
I too prefer rowing as a fall-back position in case a track career becomes impossible due to injury.
So the logical thing would be to train for 400/800 flat through our winter (after the current base of rowing x-training) and - only if her condition allows it - attempt 400H. Even if not up to her PB flat speed, she'd almost certainly challenge for a spot in any Aussie 4x4 squad.
I was at the track (Melbourne 2005?) where she ran a pretty comfortable 2-04 800 (her first I think) so she certainly has some potential in the longer event.
She's got nothing to lose - still one of our best ever athletes with 2 WC golds (and all the rest) - so good on her for having a go.
