quantumofsport.com

Sports calendar: The Big 10 for 2010

Having taken advantage of one or two quieter moments over the festive season to scour the schedules for the year ahead, quantumofsport.com is proud to present its brand new “Sports calendar 2010”. As ever, it will be a busy 12 months in the world of sport, with a range of top events competing for our attention. The calendar represents our (non-exhaustive) selection of what to look out for. We’ve also picked out – here below – ten of the biggest sporting occasions of the year, restricting ourselves to one entry for each sport we cover on a regular basis: it’s The Big 10 for 2010. Let’s hope there’s plenty of drama in store…

Feb 6-Mar 20, Six Nations rugby (for N. hemisphere fans at least!)
Feb 12-28, Winter Olympics, Vancouver, Canada
Apr 17-May 3, snooker World Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield
May 16, Formula 1 Monaco GP (or any other between Mar 14 and Nov 14!)
Jun 11-Jul 11, soccer World Cup, South Africa
Jun 21-Jul 4, Wimbledon tennis
Jul 3-25, Tour de France (starting in Rotterdam and Brussels)
Oct 1-3, Ryder Cup golf, Celtic Manor, Wales
Oct 3-14, Commonwealth Games, New Delhi, India
Nov 25->, Ashes Test cricket series Australia v England

For the full calendar, click here.

The Running Bug.

For those looking to shift that Christmas turkey / goose / wild boar / nut roast, ward off the mid-winter blues and the swine ‘flu, I suggest getting the bones in motion at one of a number of free and friendly 5K parkrun events staged throughout the UK every Saturday morning at 9:00 am sharp.

The original and flagship parkrun is at Bushy Park, West London, which started in 2004 with a mere 13 runners but which now typically attracts over 400 runners of mixed ability. At the elite end, the great Australian distance runner Craig Mottram holds the course record, an eye-watering 14 minutes flat (the women’s record is held by Katrina Wootton of Bedford & County AC at 16:20) but the usual victor will be a local London club runner, typically clocking in the region of 16 minutes. I say ‘victor’ but this is not a true reflection of the parkrun ethos, which is about personal time-trial performance. It’s all about pitching up, laying down a time and then putting the work in to improve upon this time in subsequent weeks. If you get the bug good and proper, there are plenty of athletics clubs to get involved with and enjoy the cut and thrust of competition – be it cross-country, road racing or track.

Parkrun is very much a local community grassroots enterprise and relies upon a whole host of volunteers - usually the runners themselves - rotas being drawn-up at the start of the month to assign bods to register runners, marshall, take photos and of course, record the times of every participant. Organisational costs are covered by sponsors Nike, Lucozade and Sweatshop.

So, don that old pair of trainers and “Go, Forrest, go!”

Athletics World Championships: Day 9

Ich bin ein Berliner.

Results

Women’s marathon

Gold  Xue Bai   CHN 2 hours 25 minutes 15 seconds 
Silver  Yoshimi Ozaki  JPN 2:25.25
Bronze  Aselefech Mergia ETH 2:25.32

Women’s long jump

G Brittney Reese  USA 7.10 metres
S Tatyana Lebedeva RUS 6.97
B Kerin Mey Melis TUR 6.80

Men’s javelin

G Andreas Thorkildsen NOR 89.59 metres
S Guillermo Martinez CUB 86.41
B Yukifumi Murakami JPN 82.97

Men’s 5000m

G Kenenisa Bekele ETH 13 minutes 17.09 seconds
S Bernard Lagat  USA 13:17.33
B James Kwalia C’Kurni QAT 13:17.73

Women’s 1500m

G Maryam Yusuf Jamal BRN 4:03.74
S Lisa Dobriskey  GBR 4:03.75
B Shannon Rowbury USA 4:04.18

Men’s 800m

G Mbukeni Mulaudzi RSA 1 minute 45.29 seconds
S Alfred Kirwa Yego KEN 1:45.35
B Yusuf Saad Kamel BRN 1:45.35

Women’s 4 x 400m relay

G USA (Dunn, Felix, Demus, Richards)   USA 3 minutes 17.83 seconds
S Jamaica (Whyte, Williams-Mills, Lloyd, Williams)  JAM 3:21.15
B Russia (Kapachinskaya, Firova, Litvinova, Krivoshapka) RUS 3:21.64

Men’s 4 x 400m relay

G USA (Taylor, Wariner, Clement, Merritt)   USA 2 minutes 57.86 seconds
S Great Britain (Williams, Bingham, Tobin, Rooney) GBR 3:00.53
B Australia (Steffensen, Offereins, Thomas, Wroe)  AUS 3:00.90

 

The famous quote from John F. Kennedy’s 1963 Berlin address has featured extensively in the marketing backdrop to these Championships, which have been replete with international bonhomie. It was all smiles from the American delegation today after the traditional final event of major Championship athletics, the 4 x 400m relays, where both the US men’s and women’s quartets ran out comfortable winners, taking the US gold medal total to ten and first place in the medals table, finally stretching clear of Jamaica, with whom they were surprisingly tied on seven golds at the start of the day. The third-placed nation was Kenya.

The first track final of the evening saw Kenenisa Bekele claim a tenacious victory in the 5000m, to add to his 10000m gold. Whereas the 10000m final had been a true run race, where Bekele had used his fourth gear to win after attacking at the bell, he needed his fifth full-on sprinting speed today to hold off 1500m specialist Bernard Lagat, after a disjointed concertina fast-slow-fast-slow race rhythm. How the race is run is usually irrelevant to Bekele, who can win every which way, but it was surprising, given the presence of Lagat in the field, renowned for his finishing speed, that some of the other athletes didn’t make it a true run race to try and draw his sting. It looked for all the world that Lagat would win after moving level with Bekele on the final straight but Bekele used all of his physical and mental reserves to go again and claim the first 5000m and 10000m double in World Championship history. The Ethiopian is to long-distance running what Bolt is to sprinting, it’s just he’s, well, a tad more demure!

In the second track final, the women’s 1500m, there was a wholly avoidable incident 200m from home, in which the Spanish athlete Rodriguez, itching to get to the front of the field, pushed the slightly built leading Ethiopian woman Burka to the ground, in attempting to go through a gap that simply wasn’t there. She rounded the final bend and strode to victory but it was already apparent in her face and the negative crowd reaction that it was hollow. The steward’s enquiry was swift and she was duly disqualified, the gold passing to Olympic champion and pre-race favourite Jamal. Taking the silver, just a hundredth of a second behind, was Great Britain’s Lisa Dobriskey, who again ran an excellent race. The effort of staying with the leaders on the final lap and avoiding the stricken Burka meant that she didn’t have much left in the tank on the final straight; yes, she might have got the gold, but realistically the silver was a great result.

The last individual final was the men’s 800m, which was won by the rank outsider, South African Mbulaeni  Mulaudzi, to add to his compatriot Semenya’s triumph in the women’s 800m. In all honesty, it was a poor race, not helped by there being ten rather than the usual eight runners (after reinstatements), as the big guns all seemed cagey. Mulaudzi had led from a long way out but, other than a burst from American Nick Symmonds onto his shoulder, which one would have thought would have precipitated further moves from the others, no-one was pushing. Come the final straight and the South African still had the lead, Symmonds was tying up, but the others had finally roused and were bearing down on Mulaudzi. Leading the charge was the 1500m champion Kamal, but this was a race too far for him and he couldn’t make it, getting pipped to the silver himself.

Earlier, out on the streets, watched by a million people, the women’s marathon was won by the 20-year-old Chinese Xue Bai, who completed her first marathon aged just fourteen. She and the Japanese runner Ozaki had been tracking the Ethiopian Mergia, whose exaggerated swinging arm action looked so much more energy inefficient than the running actions of the Asian women. They sped by her and in the final kilometre on Unter den Linden, the Chinese pulled away decisively.

Continuing the rise in general quality of the field event finals over the week, there were two first-class such today, the men’s javelin and the women’s long jump. The javelin is the prince of the throwing events and there was a worthy winner in the Norwegian Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen, who managed to pull everything together for his second round effort of 89.59 metres. Behind him in silver was the rather incongruous sight of the Cuban, Martinez, who, even accounting for casual prejudice, really did look like he should have been weightlifting and the bronze medallist Japanese, Murakami, hot off the press.

The women’s long jump was an excellent contest, recalling the days of Heike Drechsler and Jackie Joyner-Kersee. On the European side was the Russian Tatyana Lebedeva, the technician with a high stepping approach and a classic hitch-kicking action; on the American side was the raw talent of Brittney Reese, who is all about runway speed and uses the hang technique. The women exchanged the lead in the first two rounds but in the third round Reese nailed a decisive 7.10m jump. Another turn-up saw a Turkish bronze.

The final reckoning for Team GB was a better-than-expected six medals, two of each colour. Added to Dobriskey’s silver, the 4 x 400m men’s relay team put in a sterling performance, just outside the magic three minute mark, to get the silver behind the USA. The women’s team were slightly disappointing in placing fourth.

These have been a hugely enjoyable Championships, extremely well organised and lit up of course by Usain Bolt, but having a depth of quality that should carry the sport nicely until the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Performance of the day:  Andreas Thorkildsen

 

correction: Chris Tomlinson finished eighth not seventh in yesterday’s long jump final.

 

 

Athletics World Championships: Day 8

Bolt on the blue part 3…he’s only human.

Results.

Men’s Marathon

Gold    Abel Kirui KEN  2 Hours 6 minutes 54 seconds
Silver  Emmanuel Kipchirchir Mutai KEN  2:07.48
Bronze Tsegay Kebede    ETH  2:08.35 

Men’s Long Jump

G  Dwight Phillips    USA  8.54 metres
S  Godfrey Khotso Mokoena RSA  8.47
B  Mitchell Watt     AUS  8.37

Men’s pole vault

G  Steven Hooker   AUS  5.90 metres
S  Romain Mesnil    FRA   5.85
B  Renaud Lavillenie   FRA   5.80

Women’s Hammer Throw

G  Anita Wlodarczyk  POL  77.96 metres (world record)
S  Betty Heidler   GER   77.12
B  Martina Hrasnova  SVK  74.79

Women’s 5000m

G  Vivian Cheruiyot  KEN  14 minutes 57.97 seconds
S  Sylvia Jebiwott Kibet   KEN  14:58.33
B  Meseret Defar     ETH  14:58.41

Women’s 4 x 100m

G  Jamaica (Facey, Fraser, Bailey, Stewart) JAM  42.06 seconds
S  Bahamas (Ferguson, Sturrup, Amertil, Ferguson-McKenzie) BAH 42.29
B  Germany (Wagner, Möllinger, Tschirch, Sailer)    GER  42.87

Men’s 4 x 100m

G  Jamaica (Mullings, Frater, Bolt, Powell)   JAM  37.31 seconds
S  Trinidad & Tobago (Brava, Burns, Callandar, Thompson)  TT  37.62
B  Great Britain (Williamson, Edgar, Devonish, Aikiney Aryeetey) GB  38.02

 

Such have been the exploits of Usain Bolt in Beijing and Berlin that whenever he steps onto the track, we expect new things to happen. When they don’t, when it’s just another day at the office, there is a sense of anti-climax. Initially we feel let down and then perhaps slightly ashamed of our vicarious cinematic pleasure-seeking.

The big man concluded his Berlin program as the third-leg runner in Jamaica’s winning men’s 4 x 100m relay team, the last track final of the evening. The winning time was fast but, for the first occasion in the last six big Championship finals featuring Bolt, a world record had not been set.

The relay events in athletics are interesting because they have the added dimension of teamwork (however fleetingly!), something which won’t feature that much in the life of the average professional athlete. Sure, there are coaches and training partners, but athletics is fundamentally a selfish sport, more obviously so than most and athletes are used to being in control of their destiny. When you put four raw instances of testosterone together to complete a task, the outcome might be brilliant but it can just as soon be comically inept or wretched – how many times over the years have we witnessed the US 4 x 100m men’s relay team, invariably composed of the fastest individuals, make a complete pig’s ear of getting the baton around the track?

This time round, the US team, trying to do it for JO, weren’t the strongest and didn’t drop the baton but did contrive to get themselves disqualified through a premature changeover between the third and fourth leg men in yesterday’s heats. The Jamaican team are pretty well drilled, with only Steve Mullings replacing Nestor Carter from the world record-breaking Beijing ensemble. The 200m finalist ran a solid first leg, the dependable Michael Frater took up the delivery down the back straight and handed on to Bolt, who didn’t look his usual self as he loped round the curvy third hundred metres, not discernibly pulling away from the other runners. Jamaica were still in the lead and just as well because the baton change with last-leg man Asafa Powell was a shocker. However, there was no fear that the tank-like Powell was going to be beat – he really seems to enjoy anchoring the team. Bolt had his third gold. Trinidad and Tobago set a national record in taking silver with Great Britain taking bronze in an excellent team performance.

Prior to this, the women’s 4 x 100m relay final had seen yet more Jamaican success, in a par-for-the-course time. With the US team again absent, this time due to injury, as Muna Lee pulled up in the heats, the Jamaican team put in safety-first baton changes and let their superior leg speed do the business.

In the first track final of the evening, the women’s 5000m, there was more disappointment for Ethiopian Meseret Defar, who, in a repeat of the 10000m, got out-sprinted in the home straight. The Kenyan contingent had taken the race up with seven laps to go, only Defar being able to live with them. At the bell, Defar made a bid for home but her break wasn’t decisive, with Vivian Cheriuyot and, at the last gasp, Sylvia Kibet, coming past her. Defar did at least hold on to get a consolation bronze.

If LaShawn Merritt had put in the big American track performance last night, then it was the turn of long jumper Dwight Phillips to do likewise this evening in the field, in a more resonant recalling of Jesse Owens, whose long jump gold in the 1936 games was the hardest earned of his four. Phillips bossed the competition from the first round, when he put in an 8.40m jump, which he extended to 8.54m in the second. Beijing silver medallist Mokoena responded with 8.47m but Olympic champion Saladino dipped out after three rounds, having fouled on all his jumps. There was to be no improvement by either Phillips or Mokoena and no serious challenge from the other competitors. Phillips was presented with his third World Championship gold medal by Owens’ granddaughter, Marlene Dortch, and he memorably described the moment:

"It was like history looking at me in the face."

It was by far and away the best night of field event action, as following the long jump competition, both the women’s hammer and the men’s pole vault produced outstanding performances in different ways.  In the former, the Pole Anita Wlodarczyk went one better than male compatriots Majewski and Malachowski and took gold with an almighty hurl of 77.96m – a new world record by 16cm. In the men’s pole vault, Olympic champion Steve Hooker of Australia was nursing a groin strain and only entered the competition at the advanced height of 5.85m. He failed on his first attempt and passed up to 5.90m, which he cleared first time. No-one else could match this height.

The first medals of the day were decided in the men's marathon, on a scenic and vibrant city course, designed so as to get the most out of the spectator support. It was the usual battle between Kenya and Ethiopia, with the Kenyans prevailing. It was hard to get too excited about the race because it is very much second fiddle to the Berlin marathon proper, which takes place next month.

From the Team GB perspective, added to the 4 x 100m bronze, there were good performances from Greg Rutherford and Chris Tomlinson in the long jump, placing fifth and seventh respectively and both of our 4 x 400m relay squads made it through to the final.

Performance of the day: Anita Wlodarczyk

 

 

 

Athletics World Championships: Day 7

Homage to Jesse Owens.

Decathlon (from 20/8)

Gold   Trey Hardee    USA  8790 points
Silver     Leonel Suarez     CUB  8640
Bronze      Aleksandr Pogorelov  RUS  8528

Men’s 50k walk

G  Sergey Kirdyapkin  RUS  3 Hours 38 minutes 35 seconds
S  Trond Nymark   NOR  3:41.16
B  Jesus Angel Garcia ESP  3:41.37

Men’s High Jump

G  Yaroslav Rybakov  RUS  2.32 metres
S  Kyriakos Ioannou  CYP  2.32
B  Raul Spank   GER  2.32

Women’s Discus

G  Dani Samuels   AUS  65.44 metres
S  Yarelis Barrios      CUB  65.31
B  Nicoleta Grasu     TOU  65.20

Women’s 200m

G  Allyson Felix USA  22.02 seconds
S  Veronica Campbell-Brown    JAM  22.35
B  Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie  BAH  22.41

Men’s 400m

G  LaShawn Merritt  USA  44.06 seconds
S  Jeremy Wariner   USA  44.60
B  Renny Quow   TRI   45.02

 

In the top left corner of the running vests of the American athletes competing in Berlin can be espied the legend ‘JO’, standing for ‘Jesse Owens’, the iconic sprinter, who won four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. With Usain Bolt having been so dominant in Owens’ events of the 100m and 200m, it was almost beholden upon one of the big-name American 400m male runners to put in a performance worthy of him. And LaShawn Merritt did so.

It was the last track final of the evening, and eagerly anticipated. The protagonists were Merritt and Jeremy Wariner and it looked to be a 50-50 call. It still looked to be a 50-50 call 300m into the race, as both men had run strongly but at relatively even pace, Merritt running in lane four having the slight advantage of being able to see Wariner, sporting his trademark wraparound shades, out in lane six. Off the final bend and it was Merritt who took control of the race, keeping his upper body form superbly whereas Wariner was clearly not in A1 condition and looked ragged in the home straight, his second-place time a full second off his PB. It was deservedly Merritt’s night.

Earlier in the evening, there had been female US success at one of Owens’ events, the 200m, as the impossibly winning Allyson Felix strode majestically to victory, albeit in a rather disappointing time. As in her semi-final yesterday, Felix was slow off the blocks, very average round the bend and only gained the lead in the straight. Relaxed and graceful, she moved away from the field, breaking the line just outside 22 seconds. Taking the silver was Veronica Campbell-Brown, the Jamaican who had missed out in the 100m medals. The evergreen Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie got the bronze, at the ripe old age of thirty three.

The stirring strains of “The Star Spangled Banner” had been heard at the start of the evening’s proceedings, as the American with the classic college jock mien, Trey Hardee, was crowned decathlon champion, the competition having finished late last night. A narrow third at the end of the first day, exceptional performances in the 110m hurdles and the pole vault (13.86s and 5.20m), allied to solid discus and javelin throws, saw him amass enough points to have an effectively unassailable lead going into the 1500m finale. The devisor of the decathlon must have been a sadist because just watching these men built for power performance events lug their unwilling frames 3.75 times round the oval is painful. However, a fair few are deceptively quick. Hardee is not one of them but it didn’t matter.

The decathletes get a bit of a bum deal in terms of immediate glory because the action is so extended that, come the end of the 1500m, the wow! factor of the overall win is probably, well, about one tenth that of a regular individual event. In a soccer analogy, think of winning the league against winning the cup. Which is the more impressive? Most people would say winning the league, because it testifies more to strength of character. The very epitome of this must be the veteran world record holder Roman Sebrle, who ran, threw, and jumped gamely to finish back in 11th place.

The most dramatic action of the day was to be found in the men’s 800m semi-finals, as the overall favourite, Sudanese Abubaker Kaki, keen to make the pace in the first semi, unfortunately gave us a piece of slapstick as he tripped over himself, slid along a rail at the side of the track (still wet from earlier heavy rain), fell to ground and took out two other big guns with him – Lewandowski of Poland and Som of the Netherlands. The powerful American Nick Symmonds, who had been worryingly left at the start, took advantage of the mayhem to pull through strongly and eventually win the race (the European pair have since been reinstated for tomorrow’s final). The second semi was loaded, seven of the eight men having run sub-1:44, and there was more upset here, as the other much fancied Sudanese Ismail pulled out at 400m and the Kenyan hope Kiprop floundered. Yusuf Kamel, the 1500m Champion, won the race and perennial Russian hope Borzakovskiy also went through.

It was a mixed day for Team GB. On the positive side, Lisa Dobriskey ran a very skilful tactical race to qualify for the 1500m final. The problem for her is that, unlike Jenny Meadows, she doesn’t have a real kick finish and that will probably cost her a medal, especially in the event of a slow-run race. The other plus was the 4 x 100m men’s relay team, who put in a good showing in qualifying for the final. On the down side, Michael Bingham and Emily Freeman both put in mediocre runs as they placed seventh in their respective finals (the 400m and 200m). It was clear that they had run their personal finals in the previous round, when they posted much faster times. Michael Rimmer found the 800m semis way too hot to handle.

Performance of the day: LaShawn Merritt.