Daegu predictions for placings table

My hope in Daegu was to see further progression towards London 2012 on the placings table with an aim of 90-95 points
following on from those at Osaka (61), Beijing (71) and Berlin (81).

This is because I think this gives a much better overall assessment of depth and performance of Team GB.

However, as you will see from below we have actually gone backwards in this measure despite winning an improved 7 medals.
due to only having 12 top 8 performers which is a massive step backwards.
It appears that we are now relying on a few athletes rather than a wider and deeper pool of talent.

I seem to remember the goal for London was not only more medals but people in nearly all events and a larger number of finalists.

In fact, if you remove one athlete, Mo Farah, from the equation I think this would have been our worst ever performance!
- and as an aside Mo Farah seems to have done better since he has gone "independent" and off to the states.

OSAKA
1 USA 14 4 8 5 4 2 5 4 249
2 RUSSIA 4 9 3 7 5 5 4 0 191
3 KENYA 5 3 5 3 2 1 1 4 123
4 JAMAICA 1 6 3 2 1 3 3 1 98
5 GERMANY 2 2 3 0 5 1 4 5 84
6 GB & NI 1 1 3 3 0 4 0 1 61 - 13 top 8
7 CHINA 1 1 1 2 3 1 2 1 51

BEIJING
1 USA 7 9 7 4 3 1 3 5 207
2 RUSSIA 6 5 7 6 3 8 3 3 200
3 KENYA 5 5 4 3 3 1 3 0 135
4 JAMAICA 6 3 2 2 2 5 3 1 121
5 ETHIOPIA 4 1 2 2 1 2 2 1 76
6 GB & NI 1 2 1 4 2 3 2 2 71 - 17 top 8
7 BELARUS 1 3 3 2 1 1 0 1 65

BERLIN
1 USA 10 6 6 3 6 8 3 4 231
2 RUSSIA 4 3 6 4 5 4 5 3 154
3 JAMAICA 7 4 2 3 4 2 1 1 136
4 KENYA 4 5 2 3 4 1 3 1 120
5 GERMANY 2 3 4 2 4 4 2 1 104
6 ETHIOPIA 2 2 4 3 3 2 0 1 88
7 GB & NI 2 2 2 2 2 3 5 2 81 - 20 top 8
8 POLAND 2 4 2 2 1 0 1 1 73

DAEGU
1 USA 12 8 5 6 4 3 6 2 251
2 RUSSIA 9 4 6 3 7 4 3 4 201
3 KENYA 7 6 4 3 4 5 3 0 174
4 JAMAICA 4 4 1 3 2 2 2 2 101
5 GERMANY 3 3 1 2 2 1 3 5 83
6 GB & NI 2 4 1 2 2 0 1 0 70 - 12 top 8
7 ETHIOPIA 1 0 4 2 4 1 1 3 66
8 CHINA 1 2 1 3 1 4 0 2 61


POINTS from Berlin. Daegu prediction. Actual in Daegu.

David Greene 2. 6. 8.
Mo Farah 5k 0. 6. 8.
Mo Farah 10K 2. 7. 7.
Jessica Ennis 8. 8. 7.
Phillips Idowu 8. 8. 7.
Hannah England 0. 1. 7.
Andy Turner 0. 3. 6.

Firstly none of the above results should be criticised in anyway. Of course there are components of performance that need to be improved on
and those athletes are well aware of. Jess's Javelin as an example.

Tiffany Porter 0. 4. 5.
Womens 4x400 5. 5. 5.
William Sharman 5. 0. 4.
Yamile Aldama 0. 0. 4.
Mens 4x400 7. 4. 2.

These atheletes/teams all did well in placing and getting points and will all be challenging again in London.
Tiffany hitting that hurdle was unlucky and shows great future potential to do even better.
The womens 4x400 performed as well as they could based on their individual levels.
Oh to see Nicola and Christine fulfilling their potential/back to their best in London 2012.
Hopefully William gets an injury free run to London 2012.
Yamile although only recently back after motherhood showed she is a class athlete and can hopefully do even better in London 2012.
The mens 4x400 again missing many with injuries did well with a young team - but surely we must aim to reduce the number of injuries
thorugh smarter coaching/medical support.

Lisa Dobriskey 7. 4. 0.
Jenny Meadows 6. 6. 0.
Mens 4x100 6. 6. 0.
Chris Ohurougu 4. 1. 0.
Greg Rutherford 4. 4. 0.
Dwayne Chambers 3. 1. 0.
Kate Dennison 3. 0. 0.
Womens 4x100 3. 2. 0.
Steven Lewis 2. 0. 0.
Marilyn Okoro 1. 0. 0.
Chris Tomlinson 1. 5. 0.
Goldie Sayers 5. 0.
Perry S-D 4. 0.
Holly Bleasdale 4. 0.

Well a large number of disappointments here, injuries, false starts, and apparent nerves on the big occasion.
Yes some athletes were close to finals, PSD and Jenny but other really under performed Goldie, Holly, Lisa.

We really need to work out why.
For example, Was it really wise for PSD to do so much at the trials?
Should other have got more experience on the circuit again top competitors?
Obviously there are many more questions and they are the easy bit, it's the answers that are more difficult.

Emily Freeman 2. did not take part
Michael Bingham 2. did not take part

Finally, and to some degree encouraging, there were a number of athletes missing for various reasons that hopefully be competing next year.
Forgive me if I forget some...
Paula Radcliffe
Jo Pavey
Natasha Danvers-Smith
Michael Bingham
Jodie Williams

Interesting analysis. Shouldn't you show Mo Farrah twice? Maybe add Clitheroe and Rimmer as well (with low numbers), as they could both make finals. Nathan Woodward and/or Jack Green outside bets to reach the final.

teassoc wrote:Interesting analysis. Shouldn't you show Mo Farrah twice? Maybe add Clitheroe and Rimmer as well (with low numbers), as they could both make finals. Nathan Woodward and/or Jack Green outside bets to reach the final.

Would love to be wrong but I suspect that Woodward & Green may have gone a little off the boil by the time Daegu comes.

I really would like to add more, and I agree with you that others have a chance of making finals.

Some are yet to really open their season and others are coming back from injury and their form hard to assess.

Unfortunately some will get injured or ill, some will underperform and some will overperform.

I've tried to keep this balanced and will review once the trials are over and the team announced.

Interesting to note the progress made in the points score between 2007 and 2009. Let's hope we hit 90 points in Daegu with a view to making it back into three figures in London - a total we regularly hit in the 80s and early 90s.

The Guardian has a supplement with its Top 50 British medal hopes for the Olympics across all sports today. The track & field athletes tipped are: Jessica Ennis, Dai Greene, Mo Farah, Phillips Idowu, Perri Shakes-Drayton and Paula Radcliffe.

EEB
Yes it would be good to get back into 3 figures especially for our Home Olympics, it will be be difficult and would IMO be an even better achievement than in the 80's.
Although Germany is now combined there are a lot more countries.
The Soviet Union is now Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Baltic States all with a good athletics background plus many other countries - similar with the split of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
Finally there is the development of other countries that were limited at the time - China?

Not to mention the big improvements of certain Carribean nations, and the rise of East Africa in the distance events.

skimpton wrote:EEB
Yes it would be good to get back into 3 figures especially for our Home Olympics, it will be be difficult and would IMO be an even better achievement than in the 80's.
Although Germany is now combined there are a lot more countries.
The Soviet Union is now Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Baltic States all with a good athletics background plus many other countries - similar with the split of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
Finally there is the development of other countries that were limited at the time - China?

The early 1980's Olympics were marred by the political boycotts. Results there would have made GB look stronger than it was. Back to normal in 1988 though.

Team is named.

No places for:

Emily Freeman 2. None 0.
Michael Bingham 2. Similar 2.
Lawrence Okoye 4.

Mo Farah down for both 5000 and 10000 so additional points to compensate if he does both.

Have now updated my predictions as above.

Yes Mo doubling up has helped

He's down for both but he's said he'll see how he feels for the double after the 10000.

Maludzi is out now..... must have been the new blood testing rules and by that I mean he has a dodgy hammy

Who could've predicted Ohourugu?! Sad indeed

At least we have two girls go through to 400m semi's...but definitely firing on all cylinders i.e. too many injuries amongst our top 400m women...

That's the rules but what an utterly stupid and pathetic rule. I have never liked the one false start rule.

Dave - in agreement with you about the 'one false start and your out' rule - would prefer reverting back to the 'one false start and its goes against everyone' rule...i.e any subsequent false start[s], after the first, leads to DQ's...

You know I'm not one for a conspiracy theory, but it everyone completely convinced that Christine fancied it this week.

Who false starts a 400m heat when they're taking like the first 9 in the race and 17 fastest losers or whatever it was?

DJ - yeah, comes across like she really didn't want to even run one 400m race, let alone making it past the rounds [ may be her body wouldn't have been able to cope with it and she's saved herself further physical trauma ]...there wasn't any need for what happened, but I think she is psychologically and emotionally shot, and needs to spend the remainder of the year treating herself to some down time, away from thinking about athletics...

Let's hope she can put in a good contribution in the relay...

Bolt back in shape

Great run from Chambers too - but what's happened to his starts?! He used to be phenomenally quick out of the blocks and over the first 60m...is he just playing his starts safe?!

Rob Walker is a great addition. Ortis Deley is awful however.

Ortis is great......on children's TV...

He just doesn't have the background knowledge and the experience of being a pundit / commentator to make it easy watching, let alone exciting ...

Shame as he seems a sound enough guy

A few disappointments already that are making those predictions very shaky.

In particular Ohurogu DQ, Bleasdale no height, Dobriskie last but one, Rimmer injured and out.

Well done Mo!!!!!!! Great effort!!!

Olympics next year!!!

An amazing silver for Mo there, just can't help feeling he kicked that little bit too soon for the line though. Great learning experience for him though. Next year is set to be a cracker!

Well done to him

At last, something to cheer about.

Does anyone know whether Mo will now run the 5000m?

According to BBC Martin Gougg Tweet, Mo definitely running the 5000m!!!! Wahayyy!!!

"Mo Farah's training partner Galen Rupp has told 5 live we'll defeinitely see Mo in the 5,000m - semis are on Thursday, final on Sunday"

IMO British team underperforming so far. Let's hope Mo's silver is seen as a positive and gets the ball rolling.

Well done Jess - super 200m to finish - -1.5m per sec headwind, and she runs 23.28...real shame about the headwind, as a favourable wind could've got her close to the 23sec mark. Well done to her again

Yep Jess struggled a bit in the morning, especially in the high jump, but she battled hard to stay in touch with Fountain. She's been superb in the evening session though, with a PB in the shot putt putting her back in the lead, before antoher strong showing in the 200 (that was worth a PB with better conditions).

Great stuff from Hazel there too, winning the second heat in 24.26

and that's a shocker from Dobrynska there, she tied up badly in the second 100, Ennis will go into day 2 with a 150 point lead on Chernova and 210 on Dobrynska. Things looking up

Apparently there's a protest going on about the 110mH final, can only assume China are protesting as they feel Robles held Yang back. If there's a DQ then Turner will nick a bronze medal, which would be a fantastic result!

Yep. Robles out subject to counter protest.

I'm not too sure about it to be honest. A couple of times I've looked at it and it seemed like he perhaps did it on purpose, but how anyone can be sure I'll never know. As he didn't go out of his lane, I thought they would just put it down to an accidental collision.

It's a shame as well considering even if he does get thrown out, Liu Xiang still doesn't win the gold, surely he'll still be gutted about silver.

Predictions updated after day 3.

confirmed then, Robles DQed, not sure about that decision, looked accidental to me (Liu was close to the edge of his lane, and contact is hardly unusual in the hurdles), thoughts? On the plus side, it''s an excellent bronze medal for Andy Turner, and GB's second of the games.

I am a fan of Robles' - however, he did sufficiently impede Liu to prevent him from taking the title, whether intentional or not. It is harsh - but probably the best decision

Jess Ennis does it again. Once more, under pressure after Chernova pulled out a good second round jump, how does she respond? With another PB of course! Pulls a 6.51 out of the bag, and loses just 33 points to Chernova in the Long Jump, she'll be delighted with that. Still leads by 118 points from Chernova, and I think it's fair to say that it's now a two horse race for gold

Chelsea....what you doing up at this time in the morning?

After a poor start Ennis is coming back well!

Liam....what you doing up at this time in the morning?

I normally stay up to watch the Athletics

it's the joy of being students Sol. I happen to have just got back from a long trip in Eastern Europe and this is my first chance to watch live sport for a while so I'm enjoying it

Why you still up Sol? Watching the Athletics also?

Mad for Chelsea wrote:it's the joy of being students Sol. I happen to have just got back from a long trip in Eastern Europe and this is my first chance to watch live sport for a while so I'm enjoying it

I'm up because of the joy of insomnia!

Hope you enjoyed your trip, Chelsea : )

Liam_Main wrote:Why you still up Sol? Watching the Athletics also?

Insomnia, Liam, as mentioned above.

Only watch athletics at the Olympics, Liam.

Come on Jessica

I did indeed enjoy it Sol, it was great fun!

Jess and Chernova both up on their PBs after five events, javelin will decide it. Chernova is the better thrower, but 120 points is a more than handy gap.

Mad for Chelsea wrote:I did indeed enjoy it Sol, it was great fun!

That's good, Chelsea

Oh I see Sol.

Hopefully Jessica can win us our first gold medal!

Liam_Main wrote:Oh I see Sol.

Hopefully Jessica can win us our first gold medal!

Let's hope so Liam......I saw a documentary about her a while ago.....she's an amazing girl.

I'm going now.....night night.

original post now updated after day 6.... and bang on target for my prediction,
though there have been plus and minus's!

great run from Dai Greene, you knew he had it off the last hurdle! A bit of a mixed bag from the UK sofar, with some pleasant surprises (England, Turner, even Sharman making the final was unexpected) and a few disapointments too (not going to mention Ennis or Farah - they did fine - but Dobriskey and PSD should have done better).