UK trials

Entry lists out now.

Delano Williams only doing 200m whilst Adam Gimili is only doing the 100m.

Women's 100m includes Asha Philips and Jodie Williams neither of whom have shown any real form outdoors so far this year. Both need to be in top form if we are going to do well in the women's 4 X 100m.

Got a link to the lists?

Interested in seeing Williams and Philips. Hopefully Gimili can duck under 10 this year. Seeing his 10.08 run and him claiming he had a poor start, he could do it.

lfc91 wrote:Got a link to the lists?

http://www.uka.org.uk/results/20120622_birmingham/timetable/index/index.html

Cheers teassoc.

teassoc wrote:Entry lists out now.

Delano Williams only doing 200m whilst Adam Gimili is only doing the 100m.

Women's 100m includes Asha Philips and Jodie Williams neither of whom have shown any real form outdoors so far this year. Both need to be in top form if we are going to do well in the women's 4 X 100m.

Thanks teassoc for posting that link to Trials listings and events etc

Regarding Gemili - good to see. On the topic of talents juniors, Balorinwa in there too.

Regarding Jodie Williams, really worried that she won't be able to get it together. She's lost a lot of the momentum she'd built up over the previous two seasons. Hope she can find something from somewhere

Of course, Ennis goes in 4 events [ she is listed as entered in 100mh, 200m, Long Jump, and High Jump ].

Good luck to 'em all

[quote="Strawberry Jam"]

teassoc wrote:
Of course, Ennis goes in 4 events [ she is listed as entered in 100mh, 200m, Long Jump, and High Jump ].

Good luck to 'em all

It will be fascinating to see how she performs in the HJ in particular. This is an event where she has lost form and points recently. A 1.90 plus jump would be a good improvement for her.

She'll be up against KJT (1.88) and Isobell Pooley (1.90), both of whom are quite close to the B height for London 1.92). Better to see one or more over the A standard of 1.95.

(Co-incidently Isabre has picked this same event as a potential highlight in his website for the same reasons, as I was typing this entry).

Another interesting event to look forward to is the women's LJ. 9 over 6.40 so far this year with Jade Johnson just 1cm behind.

Proctor and Irozuru both have the A standard. Lorraine Ugen has also jumped that far, albeit wind assisted but hasn't been particularly consistent of late.

Hopefully this standard of jumping will bring out the best in Jessica and a third jumper too give us 3 A qualifiers.

(Sadly, we will hardly see any of these field events as BBC's talking heads will fill-in between the track events.)

There has bound to have been complaints made to the bbc about lack of coverage on field events, would have thought they had addressed the problem by now. I know the bbc are showing coverage on saturday and sunday, but will there be any live coverage of fridays events on say the bbc website or red button?

lfc91 wrote:There has bound to have been complaints made to the bbc about lack of coverage on field events, would have thought they had addressed the problem by now. I know the bbc are showing coverage on saturday and sunday, but will there be any live coverage of fridays events on say the bbc website or red button?

I've not heard of any planned coverage of Friday's events.

Nothing new about the BBC's dismal coverage of field events. They must view athletics as entertainment and as such they view the average viewer would not have the interest or patience to follow field events live. You would have thought though with Edwards involved that these events would have more prominence.

To be fair, the coverage could be absolutely perfect and people would still have a hissy fit about the coverage.

It's got to the point that people actually complain about the lack of (insert what they want to watch most) before the event actually happens.

Sadly, the fact remains that BBC coverage of athletics is lamentable

Anyone have a link to get live results from the trials today??

http://www.uka.org.uk/results/20120622_birmingham/timetable/index/index.html

Guessing they'll put them up on there.

Cheers mate.:-)

I think people just like to have a moan about coverage. The bbc seems as good and bad as anything I've seen in other countries (france, Germany, Italy although only 1 day). Everyone seems to concentrate on the track events because that's what your casual fan watches; they then show repeats of the field events.

Pure fans may complain, but ultimately athletics needs casual fans to be interested.

TV coverage in the USA, Canada and Australia is also poor. They only report what their own stars did, ignoring winners etc.

From what I've seen, Eurosport gives better coverage than the BBC although the frequent adverts are a pain. That, I believe, faithfully follows the coverage as beamed across Europe and does give much more prominence to field events. Therefore you don't have to suffer the inane 'talking heads' discussions which adds nothing to the events. You know every couple of minutes Jackson will say 'silky smooth'!

The BBC doesn't murder other sports in such a manner so I wonder why they have to 'dumb down' athletics?

Not seen all results for heats for the men's 100m. But looks as if Dwain is coming in to form, and that its mainly between Gemili - who looks sharp - and Dwain for this one ( there may be one or two surprises, as always ).

teassoc wrote: The BBC doesn't murder other sports in such a manner so I wonder why they have to 'dumb down' athletics?

Their Diamond League video summaries are positively horrendous with their loud beat-box musical backgrounds, false colouring and "speed - stop - jump" presentation of races.

What about simeon williamson with a SB into a big big headwind!(-2.9). I agree though probly between DC and gemilli, with my guess being either williamson or harry AA to complete the top 3.

teassoc wrote:
The BBC doesn't murder other sports in such a manner so I wonder why they have to 'dumb down' athletics?

Haven't ever watched eurosport coverage so couldn't comment on that, but the bbc "murders" plenty of other "non-mainstream" sports. It's only really rugby union, football and cricket who have enough technical fans that coverage doesn't have to be made more mainstream. A shame, but I don't think you can do much about it.

lfc91 wrote:What about simeon williamson with a SB into a big big headwind!(-2.9). I agree though probly between DC and gemilli, with my guess being either williamson or harry AA to complete the top 3.

True Ifc91. Williamson ran 10.45 running into that severe headwind. It's hard to know how hard he was trying, but that's a season's best - and with that heavy headwind. Even if he was trying his best, that's worth perhaps a high 10.20's ( not bad for the 1st round! ) - he clearly pushed Malcolm, who finished second in that race. It would be great to see him return to some of his previous form.

If we got Chambers, Gemili and Williamson through, that would indeed be awesome!!!

In the women's 100m, Oyepitan looking ver good - Nelson too. Jodie Williams looking like she's git a lot of work to do regain some of her previous form and progress - hope she can do it at it would be a shame if she didn't make it to London in the individual event.

In the women's 400m, Ohurugu well ahead and looking very good indeed. What a return to her old self. In fact, by previous accounts and reports, she's never been this quick at this stage of the season before - at least prior to a global event. Barring injury, she will be very strong come the Olympics

Theres no-one else i think can finish ahead of those 3 SJ, except maybe harry AA or edgar. Agree with the womens side of things also, dont see jodie williams getting top 3 but heres hoping she surprises everyone!

The weather forecast in Birmingham;15 - 17C and apparently a chance of rain. Last few years, the weather's not been great at the Trials, in Birmingham. Many of our sprinters primed and ready to go, and not being able to hit key marks as a result of poor conditions - cold, rain, headwinds etc

Remembering when Simeon Williamson ran 10.05 running into a -1.8m headwind, back in the 2009 trials leading into the Berlin World Championships. Williamson struggled at those championships, failing to get past the Qurater finals - guess huge pressure on him [ and if I remember correctly, had struggled after the Trials in a few meetings pre-Worlds, when he was getting a shot being in some of the bigger races involving Gay, Powell, Bolt etc ].

And who remebers when Asafa Powell described Williamson as 'Lazy' when Williamson went over to jamaica to train?! Then of course, injury struck. he has probably gone though quite inner turmoil. But credit to him. He is back to some sort of form at last - at least I hope so ]. Running 10.45 in the heats, into a very strong headwind yesterday, and heading off a reasonably in-form Christian Malcolm, signals to me that he should not be discounted [ and I don't mean half-price ].

I'me sure many of us had expected that he would take over from Dwain Chambers as our number one sprinter. That 10.05 run in Birmingham was awesome [ see below for Youtube video of Simeon Williamson in Heats, Semi's and in the Final ];

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQQt3DleU5U

There wa a lot of expectation of him back then. Perhaps too much.

It's likely too early for the kind of comeback we might hope for - but I hope he's over his injury woes

Well done Dwain!!! Absolutely well done!! Not sure about histrionics at the end - but can understand what it meant to him and what he's been through!

Awesome too for Gemili - we know he's going to London

DC delivers!! Now just the small matter of getting the A standard... Great for gemilli too. Assuming DC and gemilli are both going, who do people think will get the 3rd spot, is dasaolu the only option realy?

Dasaolu the only possibility for the 3rd spot you'd think, he has the A standard and finished 3rd here so... I think we can excuse DC's histrionics due to what must have been overwhelming emotion, and to be fair the first words he uttered in the interview were an apology for that. Now to get that A standard in Helsinki... Judging from Gemili's post-race interview he seems very keen to go to London, go and convince your coach now mate

In other races, Ohurugu looked mightily impressive I thought, moving through the gears very nicely. Times don't mean a huge amount due to conditions I think, but Greene looked OK. Offili-Porter very disappointing though, as good an athlete as Jess is, she shouldn't have won that.

Hypothetically say williamson or harry AA ran a sub 10.1 in the next week or so(unlikely i know), would they than be favourite to take the spot?

lfc91 wrote:Hypothetically say williamson or harry AA ran a sub 10.1 in the next week or so(unlikely i know), would they than be favourite to take the spot?

Hard to say. Williamson looking good right now. Very good. If he's given the chance, he might sneak in good time. HAA just doesn't seem to have it, at the moment. Not good enough for long enough. Selectors may be looking for a bit more consistency. Can Dasalou excite the selectors to keep the others out? Not sure. But time is running out for all of them.

Personally. Hoping that Williamson can do something remarkable in the coming days, to try to book that 3rd slot. Would make for a remarkable comeback

Believe that DC will get the mark he needs. By default, its now become a two-step strategy; get 1st or 2nd place at trials - followed up by an A Qualifier, probably somewhere like Europeans. By the way. He did extremely well keeping Gemili at bay. That was some feat!

Gemili's pretty much guaranteed a spot. He's done everything he or anyone else could be expected to. Two A Qualifiers. The two fastest times by a British athlete - and other performances that rank well too. And crucially, a 2nd placing at the trials. Gemili did extremely well getting that 2nd place, keeping it together, in a fiercely competitive race

Mad for Chelsea wrote:Dasaolu the only possibility for the 3rd spot you'd think, he has the A standard and finished 3rd here so... I think we can excuse DC's histrionics due to what must have been overwhelming emotion, and to be fair the first words he uttered in the interview were an apology for that. Now to get that A standard in Helsinki... Judging from Gemili's post-race interview he seems very keen to go to London, go and convince your coach now mate

In other races, Ohurugu looked mightily impressive I thought, moving through the gears very nicely. Times don't mean a huge amount due to conditions I think, but Greene looked OK. Offili-Porter very disappointing though, as good an athlete as Jess is, she shouldn't have won that.

Agree on all points.

Ennis has done remarkably well. That 12.92 is worth a lot more in better conditions. But Porter shouldn't have been beaten. Worryingly, she can be frail psychologically when in a race, it comes down to the crunch of the last few hurdles; when its looking tight and the battle of minds to stay the course gets intense ( see last years worlds finals for an example ). She definitely has the ability to be a medal contender - but has to keep it together better.

Ohurugu is looking great. She was concerned about the time - but the conditions were poor. She's going to be in that Olympic final. And she's going to make them work for that gold. Good luck to her

Finally, to end with Ennis. Well done to her for taking the High Jump title too. She does have a 1.92 high jump in her. You could see with her clearance of 1.89m. But conditions all-round not good for athletics.

Weather badly affected performances of course.

Disappointing however to see some of the 'stars' having bad days.

I'm revising my medal predictions

SJ do you think gemilli failed due to the pressure? Because i feel physically he was the most in shape and capable of the best time. No shame at all if that was the reason, an 18 year old lining up beside the most experianced sprinters in britain! Did well to take second, i personally was cheering for DC, always been a big fan of his even taking into account his past mistakes.

teassoc wrote:Weather badly affected performances of course.

Disappointing however to see some of the 'stars' having bad days.

I'm revising my medal predictions

LOL - I Know how you feel teassoc. But keep the faith for now

It's been hard to judge how our athletes might compare with the World's elites, when every year, we have our athletes having to compete in poor conditions at the trials. The trials are key, and many athletes need to peak to a degree to get a place in a major event. In terms of the fact that all athletes lining up have to experience the same conditions in the final, we can understand that in that head to head to context, the conditions don't matter. But when our athletes have to be compared to others, who are running week in week out in great conditions, doesn't help morale. And certainly doesn't help when they're try for Qualifying marks in those poor conditions.

The last few years I can remember, the trials have been in poor conditions. The men's 100m final been beset by these issues. Including the race Simeon won in 2009. a run worth low 9.90's. He won the 2009 100m uk trails final in 10.05, running into -1.9m headwind. I do believe he suffered as a result. Yohan Blake was coming through at the time. Feel Williamson was looking to compete with the guy. But struggled when the big races on the circuit came up ( these just before Berlin world's ). So much talk of dub10 time for Williamson, and not getting it at the trials definitely affected him. All down to poor conditions.

lfc91 wrote:SJ do you think gemilli failed due to the pressure? Because i feel physically he was the most in shape and capable of the best time. No shame at all if that was the reason, an 18 year old lining up beside the most experianced sprinters in britain! Did well to take second, i personally was cheering for DC, always been a big fan of his even taking into account his past mistakes.

Gemili is in great shape and should've taken it. But DC wasn't going to let Gemili have it without a fight. Never seen an athlete with such gritted determination was cheering for DC too did you see the grimace on DC's face even before half way?!

Gemili lost it to DC due to pressure. But that pressure was poured on by DC himself. However, Gemili didn't expect an easy race and kept it together easily enough to get him what he wanted. Best fought men's 100m at a uk trials in ages, I thought

Though there were some very questionable performances at the trials - most notably, Okoro. I would put Porter in that mix too.

lfc91 wrote:... do you think gemilli failed due to the pressure? ...

Considering Gemili has only been on the scene for xx months, I thought he probably did as well as could be expected, which for him would have been a "major" tournament, under cold and windy conditions.

Considering this is the Olympic year it was a surprise none of the older and more experienced guys (apart from DC), weren't able to rise to the occassion.

Only got the results - and opinions read here and elsewhere - to go on. But :

Overall times not quite what would have been hoped. Weather sounds slightly unfriendly but not awful , so would have expected a bit better in some events. However given the selection rules , a number of the better known athletes really only needed to place 1-2 to be selected , so were hardly going to break their necks here... Though Okoro seems to have forgotten that ...

Sprint events didn't look strong before - nothing has changed. At least the men have settled their team : the first three must go unless young Gemili we're to renounce his spot. (DC has the A standard from last year , so even if he doesn't run under 10.18 next week he can be included. I think he indicated he'd prefer to make it official though). Women will need to settle things at the Euros , where they will also be hoping to put up a decent relay run to ensure they stay in the top 16.

400 seems OK really : Men- all the form runners in the final , let us see how they run there ; women really only two looking much good at the moment and they ran as expected , the others can try and book a place next week. Same goes for 1500 races and m 800 , but the w800 really has thrown up some problems for the selectors , hasn't it ? Unqualified first two , year leaders down the track , top chances recovering from injury ... The one good thing is that with no athlete actually fulfilling the selection criteria the selectors will be able to assess fitness and form after the Euros and make a practical judgement as to which three to send. Again it may be a case of looking at qualifiers from last year , but so what ? As long as the best team is put forward ...

Lastly I wouldn't panic about Porter ... She would normally expect to run quicker/beat Ennis but since her place was already assured there wasn't a lot riding on the result for her , and I think we can accept one underwhelming performance after her generally good displays this season.

Truth is there were a lot of good marks set early this season , which both elevated expectation for these trials and put up the risk that some athletes had peaked too early. As long as the team is not deprived of strong performers through freak results the actual marks achieved here don't matter all that much. What is important is that athletes and their coaches have got their preparations right for the action in five or six weeks time , when we find out whether early excitement or recent slips and stumbles will prove the better guide.

Good post Alfie.

I agree with your sentiments.

Women's sprinting has however taken quite a large leap backwards. Men's sprinting not so much - and I didn't Gemili think failed yesterday, just put in his place by a hugely fired up Chambers.

Let's hope today's results are a little more encouraging.

teassoc wrote:Good post Alfie.

I agree with your sentiments.

Women's sprinting has however taken quite a large leap backwards. Men's sprinting not so much - and I didn't Gemili think failed yesterday, just put in his place by a hugely fired up Chambers.

Let's hope today's results are a little more encouraging.

Agree with Teassoc's comments - good post Alfie!

Agree also with your comments teassoc regarding Gemili being put in his place by a fired up Chambers Still recovering from the race!! Hows how much experience and desire matter [ i.e. the greater experience and desire, if combined, can be telling ].

Regarding Women's sprinting, what happened to oyepitan?! Did she not start to protect against injury?!

Sad to see what happened to Jodie Williams. Not having been able to focus on training properly due to studies meant she was missing a lot of the work needed to bring her into contention. She knows how good she is and was clearly desperate to get to the Olympics. Her form earlier inthe season wasn;t great and she possibly injured herself at soem point tryin g too hard without the necessary work to back it up; and then cam ein the trials desperate to try to give herself a chance, and then trying too hard again. Very, very gutsy. But I would ask - and this goes against what I might normally say about education - if Jodie wanted to be at the Olympics that bad, should she have focused in this task instead?! She could always have come back to her studies. After all, the London Olympics comes round once every 60 - 70 years or so. Hope she gets well soon

We desperately need women running regular times in the low 11.0 - 11.1's. And sub-23 on the 200m. We have a reasonable chance of Oyepitan of making the final if she stays fit, but she's also possibly be the only Brit in a semi too.

Strawberry Jam wrote:... After all, the London Olympics comes round once every 60 - 70 years or so. Hope she gets well soon ...

When someone says "it's a once in a lifetime opportunity" - there is normally hard sell advertising behind it. Jodie Williams has plenty of time to develop while also getting herself an education. The cold and windy London Olympics of 2012 is not that special that one should risk ones future over. There are potentially many more racing opportunities for her in a career that could span another 15 years.

ps A fifty year old man came second in the Mens javelin - well done that man!

Nore Staat wrote:

Strawberry Jam wrote:... After all, the London Olympics comes round once every 60 - 70 years or so. Hope she gets well soon ...

When someone says "it's a once in a lifetime opportunity" - there is normally hard sell advertising behind it. Jodie Williams has plenty of time to develop while also getting herself an education. The cold and windy London Olympics of 2012 is not that special that one should risk ones future over. There are potentially many more racing opportunities for her in a career that could span another 15 years.

I don't disagree. There are many more races to he had. There is the World's next year, for example. But there is no way knowing just how important a moment like competing in London might be in terms of driving and spurring an athletics career.

If there was any danger that Williams would've have tried all out for both her studies and athletics - with the possibility of getting injured [ because of being short on the training and work required to cpmpete properly ], then perhaps she could have waited that extra year for studies, and giving herself a real chance at London, rather than getting in injured cos she depsarately wanted to do both. Just a thought

fair enough

Strawberry Jam wrote:

Nore Staat wrote:

Strawberry Jam wrote:... After all, the London Olympics comes round once every 60 - 70 years or so. Hope she gets well soon ...

When someone says "it's a once in a lifetime opportunity" - there is normally hard sell advertising behind it. Jodie Williams has plenty of time to develop while also getting herself an education. The cold and windy London Olympics of 2012 is not that special that one should risk ones future over. There are potentially many more racing opportunities for her in a career that could span another 15 years.

I don't disagree. There are many more races to he had. There is the World's next year, for example. But there is no way knowing just how important a moment like competing in London might be in terms of driving and spurring an athletics career.

If there was any danger that Williams would've have tried all out for both her studies and athletics - with the possibility of getting injured [ because of being short on the training and work required to cpmpete properly ], then perhaps she could have waited that extra year for studies, and giving herself a real chance at London, rather than getting in injured cos she depsarately wanted to do both. Just a thought

I don't think the education system lets you take a "gap" year between the upper and lower sixth form which is what she would have to have done. If she'd been a few months older, this past year could have been a gap year before university.

Lots of people take 3 years to do their A-levels. I'm not sure of the exact system, but I know plenty who did and some who still do now.

The people I knew that did 3 years, did an extra year to resit their A-levels to get better grades to get on the Uni courses they wanted to do. This was in the 80s for anybody wondering!

At University one can take a year out "leave of absence" - and it depends on the department / university how they stretch it (normally only for medical reasons). I am sure something could have been sorted out for Jodie Williams - I think most educators would take a sympathetic view of her rather "unique" situation.

Nore Staat wrote:At University one can take a year out "leave of absence" - and it depends on the department / university how they stretch it (normally only for medical reasons). I am sure something could have been sorted out for Jodie Williams - I think most educators would take a sympathetic view of her rather "unique" situation.

Agree.

Amazing women's long jump at the trials. One British Record 6.95, and two PB's in 2nd and 3rd ( 6.74 and 6.64 ). Clearly then, for the Long Jump the conditions weren't obstructive. Great event and hides well.

One minor surprise, that Ennis was not able take advantage to put in a good series ( 6.27 - really feel that with her flat speed she should be able to jump 6.65 or more ). Still - overall, a great effort across the events from Ennis at the trials