"Malcolm may have made the 100 world final once."
in the last 8 years? olympic 200m final 2000, a few hundredths of a second off a medal in edmonton (i think) in a blanket finish
that was a few years ago but i think you're being quite selective with your statistics there
and there is of course the small matter of an olympic and european 4x100m gold medal, which shows our sprinters must have some sort of depth
Think it's pretty harsh that Carey Easton, who's 4th in the UK rankings this year, hasn't made the 6 person squad for the 4x400m. All because the selectors felt guilty about not picking Meadows in the 800m, so picked her in the relay. Even though she's almost a second slower than Easton over 400m this year..... Stupid politics.
Cragg is Irish wrote:
I do not believe that UKA were ever contacted, but if you can prove otherwise......
I know his parents are in the UK they were ar St Marys a week or so ago. If they turn up again I will ask them to comment on this issue.
They rang Uka and the lazy admin didn't call him back! doh......
(AC)/DC wrote:
Am I the only person who isn't all that impressed by 2 - 2.02 minute women's 800times? I'm not saying they are bad, but questioning if they are as good as people seem to think?
In my eyes it is worth only about a 1.47/48 time in mens equivilent, which certainly wouldn't and doesn't get rave reviews.
I base this on my opinion that the top mens 800 runners run about 1.43 (occasional 1.42) so add 4/5 seconds = 1.47/48. and the best womens runners 1.56 (occassional 1.55) add the same time = 1.59/2.00. Therefore the mens 800 runners are at least as good if not better strength in depth as the women. (in my opinion)
Add the same %, not raw time. If you're interested in being more accurate, that is.
A very scottish view if you dont mind me saying so. Carey was 4th in the Trials, and the first 3 are named in relay squad. You are mistaken about Meadows. She is selected as UKA's 4th entry in the 800m but wont run unless one of the 3 named ahead are injured, and who knows what might happen to Lyne if she trains hard again ?. So Maedows was always going to Osaka, which presumably why she was listed in the 4 x 400 squad in the first wave of selections.
So with Sanders, Fraser and Barr (first 3 in Trial) plus Meadows - a good relay runner anyway - Okoro (much faster than Carey this year) Christine O, plus Danvers Smith already on the team sheet, there is really no need to take Easton as well. Maybe a little unlucky, but somebody has to be the first athlete NOT picked. However if she had been picked I would probably have been asking if it was just to keep the Scots quiet.
i hope danvers doesn't run in the relay she's bloody useless
Another poster has already confirmed that this story is rubbish, so must presume you are just trying to cause trouble, but dont know why !
Why are we so interested in which 'defecing' athletes might/might not come and run for us anyway? Could it possible be that the current system is so useless at developing our own talent? There has already been posts on here saying that money is better spent keeping Moumin Geele (A Somalian Natonal) in the sport than funding another UK athlete, now we are asking why we didn't 'sign up' a South African. Why not scrap the development all together and head over to Africa with an open cheque book? It is probably cheaper and will make our coaches/selectors/staff look really good.
It is only a metter of time before our own 'production line' of 'passports of convenience' comes in to being, if it hasn't started already.
Moumin is a possible winner of Euro U23 Cross, and I dont think anybody said he was more worthwhile than any unfunded athlete.
However I do think there are a number of athletes already in the system who are in the process of applying for UK passports - I can think of at least 4 endurance athletes alone, so perhaps we will see the emergence of a group of athletes recently arrived from africa in our teams. That well known Swede Mustafa Mohammed seems to be going OK in the chase.
I agree that the current system (or lack of it ?) doesnt produce enough athletes who appear to want to succeed, but perhaps that is more a symptom of modern society than the structures in place in the UK ?
we've always had an element of this - Zola Budd being the biggest example (even if the cash came from the Daily Mail not the NGB). It's a pity the recent 'imports' such as Malachie Davies (crap) and Mason (inconsistent) have been a bit dodgy.
As an athletics nation we 'naturally' benefited from the late 70s onwards from the immigration of the 50s/60s into the UK - obviously the parents of Linford Christie, John Regis etc. didn't initially come here to ensure their child had an athletics career but as a nation its certainly helped us, and why not. Britain is an island thats always needed immigration to grow - there's probably very few of 'us' who don't have some genes from elsewhere in the world in us - whether thats European (Steve Cram's mother was German), Asian (Seb Coe's Grandfather was Indian), African etc. What we're seeing now with 'genetic' east africans becoming UK citizens is merely the next stage of that. In 2 or 3 generations Mo Farah and Moumin Geele's kids / grandkids will be as British as our current crop of sprinters whose grandparents (probably) came to Britain to work 40 years ago.
MOUMIN IS 23 ? TRY NEARER 33.
The last time I looked at the map Somalia was in Africa, not Europe. Therefore making the possibility of even running in the Euro U23, let alone winning it, difficult.
yeah your right, BUT if he gets a GBP Passport,he will be OK, and D.C will say we are producing and believe he's earning his salary, and A.S will say look at me I'm a great coach, and everyone lived happily ever after(in cloud cuckoo Land).
Lying about you age when you come to the country is a brilliant way on avoiding work.
I wish I could move home say I am 15 and win every race I run but other countries are not as stupid as mine!
Well said, I say WELL SAID
Where's James Thie? I love it when the jackass gets involved
He usually comes out when people make stupid predictions about his future performances.
want to be jackass wrote:
Where's James Thie? I love it when the jackass gets involved
James Thie will win the World Cross in Scotland.
Kenny Bekele is sh1t!
It seems to me we are looking at short term immediate solutions to cover the inadequacies of our current system, Malachi Davis was a fine example of that, courted, funded and then buggered off, last seen where? Geele might make our distance running U23's look good for a year or two and keep those people currently working for UKA in a job, but long term it isn't the answer, of course if we appear to be a soft touch, fastrack passports, accomodation at centres of excellence, preferential treatment then you can expect a rise in the number of African distance runners coming to live here and applying for citizenship, wouldn't you in their position?
I can fully understand people wanting to help athletes who have had tragic lives and coming to the UK to escape persecution, racism, it is human nature, but there has to be some transparency in what is going on.
If we continue this policy of 'recruiting' ready made overseas athletes we will develop a two tier system, domestic athletes running at national level with no funding and no possibility of representative honours and a national team made up of internationals, brought in to hold up our crumbling team.
There is a possibility within 5-10 years of us sending teams to major events such as WXC where the mens team at least could be 100% African born. Does that really make sense, will it realy show that we have made progress?
i doubt we'll see the Qatari or Bahraini experience repeated here. 1) We're not offering that much in real terms. 2) Unless you're going to win / medal at the olympics for a lot of kenyans / other africans theres little point in changing nationality. Coming 10th in the WC 10k in a UK vest wont enhance their earning potential all that much compared to remaining kenyan, never running the Olympics or WC and creaming some fast times on the GP circuit and roads. The number of athletes changing nationality for competing purposes is quite small as a % of overall competitors.
Its far more liklely that the vast majority of athletes in the next 30 yrs who compete for the UK after being born elsewhere will have come to the UK for reasons other than sport.
Maybe we'll see some strong 400m or field athletes of Polish or Czech descent coming through in 20 yrs time.
Whilst we have highlighted the obvious 'recruited' athletes here I think there's only 1 - Mason - in the UK team for Osaka who trnasferred and 1 other (Farah) who wasn't born in the UK - although I could be wrong.
I don't think we're about to see a mass of Kenyan 5K runners and Russian throwers in UK vests.