As the sun starts to set on the Athletics World Championships in Daegu team GB looks back on what might have been with a mixture of athletes both over and under performing. Although from a British point of view there have been many reasons to stay positive. There have been a handful of unexpectedly strong performances. Most notably coming from Andy Turner who managed to secure a bronze medal in the 110 metre hurdles, be it quite fortuitously with the gold medal winner Dayron Robles being disqualified due to impeding a fellow athlete. There was also a shock when Hannah England produced the performance of her life to ensure that she will be going home with a silver medal after securing 2nd in the women’s 1500 metres.
There have unfortunately also been disappointments with the two big gold medal hopefuls, Jess Ennis and Mo Farah just being pipped at the post in their respective events. In the heptathlon Ennis was leading going into day two but a poor effort in the javelin meant she gave up valuable points to her rival Chernova. Going into the last event the 800 metres she had to beat the Russian by 8 second which proved an impossible task and meant being demoted into the silver medal position. Farah had similar fortune when with just 30 metres to go in the home straight he was overtaken by Ethiopa’s Ibrahim Jeilan to also pick up silver. Although this may seem disappointing at first it is testament to the strength of UK Athletics which has been brought back from the doldrums by Charles Van Commenee, the Dutchman was made UK Athletics head coach in 2008 and his ‘tough love’ approach seems to be what the team has needed to get their act together.
The British star of the championships so far has to be Dai Greene. The Welshman won the 400 metre hurdles which by a comfortable margin, beating a strong field including former world champion Felix Sanchez and the strong American Beshawn Jackson clocking a time of 48.26. With a bit of luck Greene’s success will be repeated by Phillips Idowu who is setting out to retain the World triple jump title that he won in Osaka in 2009 on saturday. Although there are encouraging signs for UK Athletics the true test will come on home soil in london next year. The count down continues.