Hugo Hay, still shouting to the French press that Katir should be disqualified from the 5000 m result

This is all very unfortunate and I respect the Frenchman as an athlete but I’ve lost some respect for him as a person based on his rants in this interview and his unwillingness to see the big picture. Unless I’m mistaken, I don’t think the Spaniard intended to deliberately infringe on the rights of the Frenchman or any other athletes in the race. 25 athletes in a 5000 m final tightly bunched is asking for trouble anyway you look at it and bumping and jostling are part and parcel of running in a big field. Athletes have to deal with this. In triathlons, in the swim, triathletes fight for space and they are tightly grouped, all kinds of things happen very similar, but no one complains because they deal with it. Hay should accept this and move on. Perhaps he can salvage his season by picking a fast 5000 somewhere getting close to 13:00-13:05. His best time is 1310.

Not a blatant foul but Katir is a bit sketchy and needs to respect other's space. Watch the worlds 1500 m final and see what he did to Tim on the final curve. Also not blatant but if it was me I would be calling Katir out

Ghost you have referred to the French before as being kind of rude and now you are really bashing this Frenchman. Have you had bad experiences with the French?

Katir is definitely a bit physical and unafraid to make some contact. On this one he impeded Hugo Hay, but it was not worthy of a DQ. Unfortunate but the athlete needs to realize it is reflecting poorly on him at this point.

To be honest I don't really mean to bash this runner, Hay, and to be fair to him I think that in the heat of the moment after the race he became very emotional but after he sits down and takes a day or two more to re appraise the situation he will come to realise that the Spaniard did not really commit a blatant foul on him. At least that is what I hope.

French culture is very different from Anglo-Saxon culture for reasons that I think you already know about and I would rather not go into it here, but I think you know where that is leading.

I tried isolating the incident from the replay and saw only incidental upper body contact between Katir and Hay when they were side by side, just before Hay went down.

My French press is easy to use and consistently makes good coffee, so I never have to shout at it.

When it happens, they had a split screen (about 9:20.5-9:21 in the race) with the discus for whatever reason, so you can't see well. In the replay about fifteen or twenty seconds later, you can see that Katir had moved to the outside of Hay and they appeared to be jostling a bit with their arm carriage but Katir does not in any way push Hay, nor does Hay push Katir but rather Hay reaches out in front of him as he tangles his foot, probably on the back kick, possibly on the front kick, and falls. Katir's not at fault, nor did he do anything dodgy, but the pace was too slow and too many runners in a pack 3-4 abreast.

In this post today on Instagram it appears that Hugo Hay has come to his senses and calmed down because he does not even mention the Spaniard (Katir), in this post and he merely jokes that next year he will have to do some weight training to withstand the rigors of modern day track racing.

Post of the day. Made me LOL

Katir's contact isn't any more egregious than the contact Makhloufi and Centro made on their rivals in the 2012 and 2016 1500 finals.

It's kind of like swinging into lane 2 on the final stretch. Kinda cheap, not really a foul.

Hay needs to toughen up. He looked like Solinsky out there. Too bad there were no bushes.

Seems like he's regained his sense of humor and self-awareness here. Good to see.

Nice move by Katir. Is that an old one?

On the other hand, cynics might say that Hay is trying to appease his detractors because he realizes, perhaps, that his outburst was untimely and uncalled for after the race. Which ever scenario applies it is good that he did not mention the Spaniard in his Instagram post. The Spaniard gets enough criticism from many people in any case, so it’s good to avoid more fuel to the fire for his, the Spaniard’s, detractors.

I think most of us have moved on. This one matters to you Ghost.

I think everybody is riveted to their seats now because in 15 minutes from now the 1500 m final takes place for men and then about 20 minutes later the 5000 m final for women. Huge night of athletics tonight huge, absolutely huge.

Great view.

This is a risk when running 3-4 abreast, pumping the brakes and surging while jockeying for position. People don't want to get out front because it's easier to be paced. Meanwhile, the small but real risk of getting tripped up is among the drawbacks of that tactical decision.

Absolutely nothing egregious here by Katir. There is no rule that you have to run out into lane three to make room for someone.

I bet this guy Hay is like Fisher, never racing with the big boys and then handling it poorly.

worldathletics.org

Hugo HAY | Profile | World Athletics

Open link

Hay is a very good runner (3:38/7:41/13:10) as we can see from his credentials here but will he ever be a top competitor and vie for medals in championships? at this stage, I don’t think so but if I’m proved wrong in the future so much the better for him. I compare his times with someone like Conner Mantz, because they have very similar personal best times over 1500 m 3000 m and 5000 m but unlike the Frenchman I think if the American faced a problem in a race which was similar to the one we saw a few days ago after the race he would not say anything. The American in my mind is much more gracious. It’s part of French culture in general, and there are exceptions, to complain and to always focus on negatives. I see it every day at work in France and in day-to-day relationships with French people.

France is great for a holiday or a short stay but to live here on a permanent basis can be very stressful and another statistic is that French people are the biggest consumers of antidepressants in the world and other medications which fulfill the same function.

Digressing but UK coverage showed all of 5 mins of the actual race of the womens 5000; and about 20 mins of the mediocre men's HJ and ditto 20 mins of the Men's hammer. ffs.