So I'm writing from Serbia where it's 4:15 am. Did this race really happen?
This is quite honestly disgraceful. Not necessarily by them. I get it - they are young. But someone with experience, their agent or coach ,etc. needs to tell them, "This is a bad look. The world needs to be less self-absorbed."
We were told they needed to skip World Indoors as they didn't want to race much so they could get ready for World Outdoors. Instead, they run a mediocre 13:06 on the same day as World Indoors. I mean my god. I used to be a college coach. If they need a hard effort - then a hard 3k at Worlds would have worked perfectly. I don't want to hear a bunch of crap about how the travel would cost them a lot of time - it would have cost them to miss 2 workouts.
And I don't want to hear a bunch of crap about how Teare needs the standard. If he can't hit the standard at Pre, then he shouldn't be considering going to Worlds.
Someone in the comments section of our live podcast asked us what I thought they'd run. I said, "My God, they'd better break 13:00 or I'm irate."
I think another t-shirt needs to be made. "I skipped World Indoors and all I got was this lousy 5k pb."
Weldon is right. When World Athletics issues qualifying standards, the window should only include dates after the end of the indoor season unless the race is run indoors.
