The 2015 World Athletic Championships

Blink and we will miss them. This time last year our athletes proved themselves to be the number one nation in Europe, getting more medals than the mighty Russians. Most of our medals came on the track, the largest percentage by far being in the short distance events for men and women. This time around our sprinters are up against the might of Jamaica and the USA and will need to improve by over a tenth of a second to stand any chance being on the podium. We can certainly win medals in the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400, in the 110m hurdles and in the distance events we have the incomparable Mo Farah who will surely retain his 5000m and 10000m titles. Meanwhile Jessica Ennis is returning to competition after her maternity leave so may not quite be at the peak of her powers. In the field events our best hope is for Greg Rutherford to maintain his astonishing form. Good luck to all participants both ours and those of our competitors.

Aside from our team, I am looking forward to the clash between Gatlin and Bolt and the ongoing battle between the Kenyans and Ethiopians in the distance events. I hope the winner of the 1500m comes from one of those two countries because the event has been rather turgid for nearly the past decade with runners running a tactical battle instead of getting out there to destroy the field. How else did a Turk win the 1500 gold? The Kenyans should have run the finish out of him long before the last 200m.

 

Not football so why make a thread? There is an off topic thread.

 

Too major an event Tom to go in an off-topic thread where the chat ranges from computer games to Top Gear and all sorts of other sundry topics. This is a World event and I feel deserves its own thread.

 

On a football forum? OK then.....

 

Same reason we've got a cricket thread......

 

Well that's different there's a fair few cricket fans and it spreads across the whole summer so we can't have it on the off topic thread.

 

Tbf to Ides he did ask the mods if it would be ok. Not a big deal. People will post or it will rapidly die a natural death.

 

Which is why I said it was OK. If it's not stickied it will fall off the front page if nobody posts.

 

Cricket thread is **** too.

 

People who follow football are more likely than average to follow other sports....so why not. Me...I'm watching tennis at the moment.

 

Please don't let Gaitlin win. I can't bear drugs cheats. Ban the lot of them.

 

As a amatuer runner, I like to cast my eye on running events. As far as Croatia's representatives a the Championship, we have Blanka Vlašić (who's 17 year old brother Nikola is the most talented footballer to come from Croatia after Luka Modrić) and Ana Šimić at women's high jumping and could reasonably expect a medal, while anything but a gold for Sandra Peković at women's discus would be a huge failure. Other than those three, not much to mention.

 

Get on the phone to Les then!

 

Watching the Athletics today instead of Rambling. Women's Heptathlon looking good and Mo Farah looks great halfway through the 10K.

 

Mo Farrah with the gold for the 10k

 

They tried everything to beat him in the humidity. He was even tripped two or three times.

 

Good race. Began to worry when he started looking behind himself at the end, but should never have doubted him. And 1st and 2nd in standings in the heptathlon going into day 2...excellent.

 

Think he was looking to pull his training buddy through but glad the Kenyans ran the finish out of him and pushed Mo all the way. Well done Mo and well done to the Kenyans!!

 

Why do I like the Kenyans? When I started watching athletics there was simply no one to compare with the legendary Kip Keino. Remember him?

 

Do you think that Jessica Ennis changed her name to Ennis-Hill so she could compete with Katarina Johnson-Thompson on all levels and if Katarina Johnson-Thompson gets married will she have a triple barrelled name?

That aside it was a very good start for the Brits on day 1. Really pleased for Mo Farah after all the innuendo the press have been putting his way recently. A couple of medals in the heptathlon on day 2 will be brilliant. There's something called the 100m to finish the day but I don't think anyone will hang around to watch that