Shooting His Bolt - World Athletics/Para-Athletics Championships 2017

[San Bernardhinault]

Wow! What happened there? Did Miller-Uibo cramp?

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Holy fuck

[Ray de Galles]

Was there any kind of interview with Miller-Uibo to establish what happened to her? Never seen a sprinter react quite like that before.

Fantastic Men's 400m hurdles tonight and Maklawa has instantly become the most popular non-Brit for the stadium crowd.

[ursus arctos]

Miller-Uibo left the arena without speaking to anyone last night and I haven't seen anything today.

Johannes Vetter exceeds the "automatic qualifying" standard by almost ten metres with his first throw of the javelin.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Wow! What happened there? Did Miller-Uibo cramp?

That's an honest explanation, she looked up at the big screen and then misplaced her foot.

[tee rex]

Jordan Williamsz of Australia has qualified in the men's 1500m. He should then be disqualified for having a very silly name.

[johnr]

I saw that, and wondered how he gets through life having to explain to, well everybody, that there is a 'z' at the end of his name. Must be a pain.

Blimey, this triple jump final is a belter.

[Mumpo]

Looks like Christian Taylor's wristband will continue, at least for now, to be merely a reminder of when to watch Hollyoaks.

[Mumpo]

Get in, Guliyev.

[johnr]

Looks like Christian Taylor's wristband will continue, at least for now, to be merely a reminder of when to watch Hollyoaks.

Excellent stuff.

[jwdd27]

Guliyev would be the first guy to approach if you were looking to buy drugs in a nightclub.

[ursus arctos]

Only if you definitely had enough to money to buy.

I would not want him to think I had wasted his time.

[johnr]

Nah, I'd go to him last, he's scary. I'd try the geeky fella hovering at the back first,

[Ray de Galles]

Turkey seem to have quite a few naturalised athletes like Guliyev competing in this Worlds, there were a couple of Jamaican born athletes in the 100m too. They're hardly the first to do so but is it a recent development for them?

Interesting that Guliyev almost did his lap of honour with just an Azerbaijan flag until someone diplomatically handed him a Turkish one too.

[ursus arctos]

I was wondering if it was connected to their recent history of doping bans.

[Ray de Galles]

Interesting. I forgot that their other medalist, Capello in the 400m hurdles, is a naturalised Cuban too.

I am now going to need to find a list of all the naturalised athletes in the Championships.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Interesting that the mens 200m winning time was the slowest since 1983. Also, no-one was exactly pulling up trees in the 100m either. Maybe the anti-doping gang have got their act together after all.

[ursus arctos]

You can start with all of the Bahrainis and Qataris

[Ray de Galles]

Yes, that much is obvious. It appears that ten of the eighteen individual Turkish athletes are naturalised.

Going to stop now or I'll get depressed.

[Ray de Galles]

Interesting that the mens 200m winning time was the slowest since 1983. Also, no-one was exactly pulling up trees in the 100m either. Maybe the anti-doping gang have got their act together after all.

I think we'll also be hearing a lot of blame for the conditions too. Friday and Saturday nights were warmish but it's got distinctly cold all week since. Even though tonight was dry after yesterday's deluge it was a jeans and coat evening in the stadium.

[ursus arctos]

That helped make Vetter's javelin throw all the more remarkable.

[Antepli Ejderha]

I think Güliyev is a slightly different case to other naturalized Turks as he's from a Turkic speaking nation and was carrying both flags. He had both in his hand after he won but gave the Turkish one back while be tied the Azeri one around his neck.

For about ten to fifteen years there were a number of female distance runners from Ethiopia who became Turkish citizens, they got caught up in the doing scandals of recent years. Elvan Abeylegesse being the most famous.

It's only in the last few years that Turkey has began to import male athletes but there's been a similarly long history of footballers, almost always Brazilians, who've taken out Turkish citizenship and represented Turkey. They've all taken on Turkish names but have not converted to Islam as far as I know.

[Ray de Galles]

Not sure Guliyev speaking Turkish is really all that relevant, he has no actual personal link to the country he's representing apart from accepting their superior wages and facilities. I'm not really blaming him for doing so (as I said above plenty of countries including GB&NI accept naturalised athletes) but when the majority of Turkey's athletes are originally from other countries it has to raise questions especially when allied with their doping history. Has the IAAF ever tried to impose more stringent nationality qualifications and limit athletes to one country over their career?

The footballers are a different case, I presume they will have moved to Turkish clubs as opposed to being directly drafted in to represent the country? Was their nationality fast-tracked in any way, out of interest?

[Janik]

There was this on naturalised athletes in the build-up to the Championships.

[Antepli Ejderha]

I think Güliyev has mentioned the language and culture as an issue in choosing Turkey when he could have chosen Qatar or Bahrain. I'm not excusing him but there's some connection.

The footballers iirc served their time and weren't fast tracked. There was also quite a lot of bad feeling towards them and much debate on whether they should play for Turkey or not. Only Mehmet Aurelio actually made it as a regular and all the others seem to have taken out citizenship to get around the rules on the number of foreign players.