Dwain Chambers

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http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/athletics-beware-young-america-1252698.html

This all ended in tears!

It was interesting reading the 1997 GB sprinting teams at the bottom of that article, after the success of old warhorses Christian Malcolm and Marlon Devonish today and MLF the other day -- so many hopeful and sometimes successful sprinting names have faded into the dust. I mean, Darren Campbell is quite well remembered...but what about Iwan Thomas and Mark Richardson, who both ran faster than Roger Black, after all? Jamie Baulch, Tyrone Edgars, Jason Gardener, Julian Golding, Doug Walker, Doug Turner, Du'aine Ladejo?

Also, whenever I see Dwain, I do just think: Kelli White, Tim Montgomery, Marion Jones. Most people involved in BALCO have been run out of athletics, some went to jail. He should be grateful to be running.

 

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You haven't missed it.

 

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I don't know if anyone else caught Lisa Ryzih's Iggy Pop spasms and struts during the pole vault? She was back-chatting her pole.

 

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I'm into these punky German and Slavic track and field starlets, but I must admit to missing Berlino the Bear.

 

[don_quixote]

when did we get so shit at throwing events? - five british javelin competitors!

 

[crackerjack]

I do hope this on-the-cheap Channel 4 coverage of World Athletics isn't a sign of things to come now that the BBC is too poor to do anything except Strictly Come Dancing and Traffic Cops. Very weak.

And who's this Flintoff wannabe presenter?

 

[crackerjack]

sample quote: "What an athletics championships this is turning out to be. So thats one bronze and one silver for Team GB." Well that's me rapt.

 

[...]

It's bizarre. What's the story, anyway -- that the BBC couldn't afford the coverage? It's a strange enough championships as it is, without taking away Brendan Foster as well. Very disappointing.

 

[crackerjack]

It's bizarre. What's the story, anyway -- that the BBC couldn't afford the coverage? It's a strange enough championships as it is, without taking away Brendan Foster as well. Very disappointing.

I can't see any other reason - there'd be no point in C4 gazumping BBC for the rights and then spending a fiver on the actual production. But they seem to have no base camp studio - just one brief interview with the godlike Michael Johnson, shot from about 2 yards so as not to reveal the cheapness of the surrounds - who I'd guess has hired himself out by the second and looked really uncomfortable - and loads of shots of Fintoff wannabe perched on the back of his chair and the press enclosure. Just awful. Of all sports, athletics is enhanced so much by expert commentary & Foster brings expertise, proper in-depth knowledge (what journalists call 'research' - Hansen, Shearer etc take note) and so much enthusiasm he frequently trips over his tongue. This is the last big tournament before the London Olympics and the BBC should OWN it.

 

[...]

I agree completely.

 

[crackerjack]

apparently there was some even worse stuff - glad I didn't see it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/31/ortis-deley-channel-4

 

[baboon2004]

i do hope the Olympics is a disaster and an embarrassment to this and previous governments. if britain didn't win anything it would make it even more special, but i fear we have too many talented athletes around for that to happen.

 

[...]

Well, Ortis Deley wasn't any worse than the other chump; he certainly wasn't as irritating or pleased with his shorts, he just seemed to talk like he had a head full of milk.

The whole thing is a horror story. I am most disgruntled. What's even worse is that they have the rights for the next WC, too, so we'll haver to suffer this total shit all over again in 2013. The old BBC team must be gawping at their TV sets in disbelief. Brendan Foster is probably going apoplectic. I think it's affecting the morale of the atheletes, as well. Not putting in very good performances are they? Eh? Eh?

After watching Dai Greene win his heat yesterday, one of the commentators actually said, "ahhh, I'm BUZZING after that!"

 

[...]

Dwain is going to the Olympics!

Even though he was caught on camera screaming, "fuck off! Fuck you! Ha, fucking fuck you! Fuck, yeah!" at the crowd when he won the Birmingham trial. I don't know why I'm pleased. Maybe it's an age thing. The same reason I was delighted to see Christian Malcolm go through. These are the last runners left standing from (ahem) "my generation". Once they go, all the athletes will be younger than me, forever. I will be unequivocally middle aged.

 

[...]

Dwain was/is in Moscow, still chugging away. It's hard to begrudge the determination, however desperate and depleted, and particularly with Jason Gardener swanning around in boating jacket and red trousers.

In contrast Christine Ohuruogu seems blessed, and really is an exciting, edge-of-the-seat runner, despite thundering like a carthorse around the bends (that sounds nastier than it should, of course I love her).

Real drama and glamour reserved, then, for a regal Isinbayeva who is incapable of being boring and showed that Yank upstart a thing or two. However, the prospect of an Allyson Felix and Shelly-Ann Fraser 200m showdown is very exciting and I am backing spider-legged, glass-boned Felix all the way. Pink hair is, I'm afraid, non-U.

 

[baboon2004]

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/aug/15/yelena-isinbayeva-green-tregaro-rainbow-gesture Oh dear, Yelena. Not as good on the old human relations as at vaulting over a bar, then.

 

[hucks]

Dwain was/is in Moscow, still chugging away. It's hard to begrudge the determination, however desperate and depleted, and particularly with Jason Gardener swanning around in boating jacket and red trousers.

In contrast Christine Ohuruogu seems blessed, and really is an exciting, edge-of-the-seat runner.

I really hate all the pious criticism of Ohuruogu for missing some tests (this sort of crap http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/...huruogu-will-never-fully-loved-080404262.html). "Just because Ohuruogu’s story appears to add up doesn’t mean we should necessarily excuse her and blindly celebrate her success." The innuendo in that...The reason she'll never be loved is because these articles, piss easy carping about something from years ago, keep being written.

One of the tests she missed because there was a school sports day going on at Crystal Palace so she had to change her plans. She did loads of tests during that period and load more since, but reading that piece you'd think she was found guilty.

Compare that to David Millar, who did fail tests, but is now sorry and wrote a book about it where he was the right amount of contritional so he's OK. Pisses me off.

 

[...]

Indeed.

Having said that, I was surprised nobody mentioned it much over the last two years, but now you've pointed out an article mentioning it, I'm amazed it's being mentioned.

 

[...]

Euro Champs going well.

Shame about Will Sharman, we all love the lovely talkative git and want to see him pick up a gold.

UK is developing a minor sprinting culture again, for the first time since the early/mid 90s, and this time the women are involved.

Nowhere near the Jamaicans and Americans, of course, but they are all on drugs.

Talking of which I felt:

1) Happy to see Dwain make the 100m final because he's my age, and when he actually retires I will fell definitively old

2) Sad to see him come 4th, for same reason.

I have largely forgiven him for BALCO by now, just by his sheer persistence and suffering.

 

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