IAAF World Championships

[Tony C]

Dreadful start as Christine Ohuruogu false starts in her first heat and is immediately disqualified.

Displaying not a morcel of sensitivity the Channel 4 trackside interviewer thrusts a microphone into the face of a clearly distressed Ohuruogu looking for a "reaction". The camera stayed relentlessly on the poor woman despite her speechlessness.

[Tony C]

IAAF World Championships

I see that C4 have got Michael Johnson on board for their coverage so that's a plus.

[wingco]

IAAF World Championships

Usain Bolt just astounding in his opening heat. 10.11, mostly jogging. He is back!

[Tony C]

IAAF World Championships

Kenya take all three medals in both women's marathon and 10k. Impressive.

[Arturo]

IAAF World Championships

Feels a bit odd watching it on Channel 4 in the morning. Usually watching repeats of Frasier around this time.

Potentially great day in prospect. Pistorius in the 400m semi-finals, Mo Farah in the 10,000, and of course, Bolt.

[wingco]

IAAF World Championships

Channel 4's studio link guy is absolutely atrocious. And that advert they insist on shoving to the top of every break ain't lifting my homicidal mood none.

[Arturo]

IAAF World Championships

Just realised the 400m semi-finals aren't until tomorrow.

Dwain Chambers becomes the latest Brit to be disqualified.

[wingco]

IAAF World Championships

Mo just run out of it. Just went too early.

[Tony C]

IAAF World Championships

Yeah, fantastic 10k, though - I was jumping up and down in front of the televison screaming like an idiot but to no avail.

To come up with a 53 second final lap and still not win - sometimes you just have to say "too good" to the victor, which is what the always gracious Mo did in his post race interview.

[Tony C]

IAAF World Championships

The curse of the false start strikes at the very top.

Blake gets gold in 100m.

[Arturo]

IAAF World Championships

Astonishing.

Expect a review of the race rules very soon...

[wingco]

IAAF World Championships

I just said exactly that on Facebook.

[statto99]

IAAF World Championships

And me in my front room.

That must have been a commercial disaster. I wonder what percentage of the audience turned off once Usain was gone. Allowing that to be repeated at the Olympics, especially when people, inclduing sponsors, have paid ultra-top whack to be able to say "I was there when Usain Bolt ran the 100m final" will now become unthinkable.

I think the IAAF are also lucky the race wasn't in western Europe where I suspect the final would have been accompanied by widespread booing and jeering.

[Janik]

IAAF World Championships

Wasn't the change in the false start rules brought in at the behest of TV/sponsor, or at least in their supposed interests? A messy one for the IAAF.

On the other hand, this rule is fairer than the recent one which saw the first person to false start get away with it and the second and subsequent people DQed.

Even with each competitor allowed one false start, it's still possible for a frontline competitor to be thrown out, cf. Christie as defending 100m Olympic Champion in 1996. You can't have the people making the rules regarding one competitor as bigger than the event, however good he might be.

Swimmers are also on a hair-trigger, and that doesn't generate complaints. And the difference between Swimming medals is often just as narrow as in Athletics. Athletes just need to get used to not "going on the 'B' of bang".

[Sean of the Shed]

IAAF World Championships

Janik wrote:

Even with each competitor allowed one false start, it's still possible for a frontline competitor to be thrown out, cf. Christie as defending 100m Olympic Champion in 1996. You can't have the people making the rules regarding one competitor as bigger than the event, however good he might be.

Swimmers are also on a hair-trigger, and that doesn't generate complaints. And the difference between Swimming medals is often just as narrow as in Athletics. Athletes just need to get used to not "going on the 'B' of bang".

Rulemakers won't like it, but sponsors will apply huge pressure to make sure they have their "marquee" athletes in the final. In this instant at least Bolt made it to the start line for the final, but imagine if he he had done it in the first qualifiers. However fair and arbitrary the rule may seem, MacDonalds and Coca Cola won't give a fuck, they pour millions into the Olympics to get their addictive, high calorie child bloating shit in big letters on every TV screen around the world, and they aren't going to let some old blokes in suits put off a large proportion of their target audience. They won't have worried too much when it happened to Chambers or Ohuruogu, but now Bolt has shot his, they will. They want Bolt running in the final. Fuck it! I want Bolt running in the final.
Also if I was Yohan Blake I'd put that Gold medal in a box and never bring it out. Everyone will tell him that he wouldn't have won it if Bolt had not been disqualified, and he'll never be able to prove otherwise. It's tarnished.

[Sean of the Shed]

IAAF World Championships

[Seven Saxon Kings]

IAAF World Championships

Exactly right. It's cheapened the whole competition and left a sour taste with a lot of spectators who paid good money to see Bolt. Terrible for the sport.

[Janik]

IAAF World Championships

Sean of the Shed wrote:

They want Bolt running in the final. Fuck it! I want Bolt running in the final.

That is not sport, though, is it? Sport always carries the possiblity of failure, however talented a competitor is (or at least those that aren't fucked do so). The question is whether Athletics is a sport or a branch of the entertainment industry? For now it seems to regard itself as a sport, and is within it's rights to claim it's sponsors have signed up on these terms and ought to respect them.

If the IAAF change the rules on false starts because of this, karma says Bolt pulls a hamstring and is missing anyway. Would that also give supporters a sour taste?

Sean of the Shed wrote:

if I was Yohan Blake I'd put that Gold medal in a box and never bring it out. Everyone will tell him that he wouldn't have won it if Bolt had not been disqualified, and he'll never be able to prove otherwise. It's tarnished.

It wouldn't be wise to make any claims about being the best based on this. But in the long run his very annonimity might allow him to display it. It might take a while before anyone connects the race he won with the one where Bolt got disqualified.

[Kettle]

IAAF World Championships

110m hurdles final, later today, looks like it might be a doozy, if the semis are anything to go by. Robles, Xiang, the three Americans all contenders, with the two Brtons sneaking in despite Andy Turner having a ridiculously slow start (maybe the massive reaction to Bolt is playing with some weaker-minded-yet-still-impressive athletes).

I've a mind to say Robles to win, but will be close between five of them.

[NickSTFU]

IAAF World Championships

My enjoyment of this event is slowly being ruined by the C4 highlights package and that Rick Edwards bloke.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

IAAF World Championships

Well, in a World Championship that's likely to remembered more for rules infringements than performances, Robles wins the 110m hurdles and is then disqualified for contacting Liu outside of his lane over the penultimate hurdle. Liu, sadly, doesn't even get the consolation of gold, even though he was the one knocked off his stride he only gets bumped from bronze to silver.

I predict that in the long jump someone will win by beating the world record with their very last jump, everyone will go mental, then five seconds later they'll realise they've raised a red flag for him being 0.5cm over the take-off board into the plasticine bit.

[evilC]

IAAF World Championships

Just to echo what many here have already said: the Channel 4 coverage is utter shit. Even Johnson's presence can't lift it. Ortis Deeley just seems star struck by the presence of the athletes in the booth with him and can't properly react to the instructions he's receiving through his earpiece.

Tonight, I tuned in to watch the highlights, in the hope of catching the climax of the pole vault (which they had criminally cut short earlier in the day, just as the last few protagonists were attempting their final jumps - probably to show some horse racing or similar shit). What I am presented with is a highlights show that is so brief, shallow and badly presented as to surely be a sick joke! I was reminded of that Monty Python sketch 'How To Do It': "Now, how to play the flute. Well you blow in one end and move your fingers up and down the outside."

I just sincerely hope C4 don't get anywhere near the Olympics if this is how they murder the biggest athletics meeting in the world. Terrible!

[Janik]

IAAF World Championships

It's inexperience. If they are making a serious commitment to covering athletics, it will be much better next time around.
Which doesn't stop it being pretty painful watching at the moment.

[NickSTFU]

IAAF World Championships

evilC wrote:

Tonight, I tuned in to watch the highlights, in the hope of catching the climax of the pole vault (which they had criminally cut short earlier in the day, just as the last few protagonists were attempting their final jumps - probably to show some horse racing or similar shit). What I am presented with is a highlights show that is so brief, shallow and badly presented as to surely be a sick joke! I was reminded of that Monty Python sketch 'How To Do It': "Now, how to play the flute. Well you blow in one end and move your fingers up and down the outside."

Then to make matters worse Rick bloody Edwards proceeds to tell us all what a fantastic competition it was.

Really? Well if the show lasted more than 40 shagging minutes you could have shown us more of it. Twats.

I’m moved to formally complain, I’m off to Google Channel 4 complaints.

Good day.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

IAAF World Championships

The C4 commentator on the men's 1,500m semi-finals just breathlessly announced "150 yards to go..."

surely if there's one sport in the world that's been solidly metric since the war, it's athletics. I bet Steve Cram's never even thought in "yards", let alone uttered the word.