2011 outdoor Summer season

First topic message reminder :

I just thought I'd start a thread aggregating information about the summer season, especially from meets that don't have many Brits involved/other noteworthy performances. I'll begin by mentioning James Ellington's sprint double in Metz last night. He won both the 100m and 200m - the latter in 20.52, which is a massive PB for him and makes him top of the UK rankings. Hopefully we'll see increased domestic competition in the sprints following the return of Simeon Williamson and Tyrone Edgar. Williamson ran a windy 10.35 in Bilbao recently, after missing all of last year due to injury. Edgar is also on the comeback trail, posting a windy 10.43 at Cottbus on Saturday.

There is also a meet in Stockholm tonight - this features a few Brits, especially in the middle-distances. Here is a link to the event website:

http://www.friidrottsanmalan.se/fgp/sollentuna/anmalan/default2.aspx

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If Powell is going to take a global title when Bolt's in the race, then he may have to do this year - this year could be his only chance, given that Gay is also out of the picture - but Powell may still have to run 9.6's to do it

A few big names turned out at the Stretford BMC meet last night. It was a great night for Andrew Osagie who who the 800m A race, setting a PB and going to No 2 in the rankings in the process. His 1:45.63 time is one of the best set in BMC competitions since that particularly fast race at Watford in 2006 (won by Richard Hill in 1:45.10). Ben Scarlett also improved his PB significantly, clocking 1:47.88 for 4th. James Brewer and Niall Brooks featured in the 1500m A race, which was won by Irishman Ciaran O'lionaird in 3:40.71. Both have competed sparingly this season so far, Brewer is in better shape though, clocking 3:42.28 to Brooks's 3:47.74, the top domestic athlete in the race was Frank Baddick, who finished 5th in 3:42.24.

Another site for up to date results and commentary is http://athleticsstargate.wordpress.com/. Also with contributions from Isabre. News on it this evening of a big PB of 46.74 secs for Clovis Asong in the boys 400m in the European Youth festival in Turkey.

Really big news about Clovis today, who incidentally is my all-time favourite athlete to have been named after a pre-Charlemagne Frankish King:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_I

His 46.74 takes him to =2nd on the all-time UK U17 400m list, behind Mark Richardson and tying with Guy Bulloch (one time European Junior Champ in the early 90s). Also in Trabzon English Schools Champ Sophie Papps set a marginal PB - 11.77 in the 100m to win her heat.

I remember as a young lad being so so chuffed to put down a sub 55 second 400m as a 15 year old. Clovis would have been 50m+ ahead of me and still only aged 16. Simply phenomenal.

There's been a couple of important junior performances at BMC meets in the last few days. Matt McLaughlin shot to the top of the U17 800m rankings by winning the E race at Stretford on Saturday in 1:51.59. He front ran the 2nd lap and claimed he would've come closer to 1:50 if pushed in the last 200m - check the BMC event report here: http://www.britishmilersclub.com/bmcstorydisplay.aspx?storyid=652

That result puts him 14th on the UK U17 all-time list, perhaps he'll be bumped up into a stronger field in a few BMC meets before the end of the season to break into the top 10. The other outstanding junior performance at this meet was by Stockport's Chelsea Jarvis in the women's B 800m race, who came 6th in a time of 2:07.17. This takes her to 2nd in the U17 rankings behind Jessica Judd, though she is a year younger the Chelmsford prodigy. Jarvis's progress in the 800m has been steady but linear, shaving three second off of her PB every year. If she carries on with that rate of progress a run of 2:04 next year would take her into the all-time U17 top five. Jarvis's place in the rankings could be usurped by Bath's Loren Bleaken who ran 2:06.63 to win the A 800m race at the BMC Exeter meet last night. This hasn't appeared in the official rankings yet, but if ratified is a five second improvement on a PB she set nine days ago at the South West Inter-Counties Champs at the same track.

The biggest senior athletics story of the day is news of Brett Morse's outstanding performance in Helsingborg. He smashed his PB and went to No 3 on the all-time list with a throw of 66.06m. His series included several other throws over 64m. There are now four UK throwers with the 65m A standard for the World Champs, and Morse is the most consistent of those, having thrown over 60m in 15 competitions this year. It's fair to say that Morse has led the revival in UK discus throwing - in 2009 no-one threw over 60m. Last year he threw over 60m several times and broke the usual UK thrower pattern of setting a half-decent mark early on in the season which is never bettered, trailling well behind the world's best come high-season. Well done to Brett and well done to his long time former coach Nigel Bevan who's been instrumental in raising Brett's performance level to a far higher level than the UK norm for the discus.

The discus comp at the UK Trials in Birmingham this weekend must now be one of the most anticipated events in the whole programme - no other country in the world has four throwers over 65m this season and what happens will really matter when it comes to selecting who gets on the plane to Daegu.

There's been a major medal rush for the GB team at the European Youth Champs in Turkey the past few days. Yesterday afternoon was particularly satisfying with three Golds. Clovis Asong ran a virtual time trial to win the boy's 400m, once again under 47 secs but well out on his own in clocking 46.94. Sophie Riches took the girl's 1500m - the result isn't up on event website but I believe she ran around 4:26. The most dramatic win was by Elliot Safo who clinched victory in the boy's Long Jump in the last round, with a leap of 7.38m. This was a big shock as four boys went into the field with superior PBs. James Lamswood took home Bronze in the boy's 1500m. The medals haul has continued to inch up today, with Silver for Jacob Paul in the 400m Hurdles, in 52.80.

Earlier in the week our junior sprinters fared well again, with Sophie Papps winning Gold in the girl's 100m, running 11.82 in the final. Leon Reid finished a close 2nd in the boy's race, just 0.02 behind German Daniel Koelsh with 10.68. Gordon Benson also claimed Silver in the 3,000m, clocking 8:23.05.

The event website can be found here: http://www.trabzon2011.org/results/

Regular updates are being posted by UKA Development Manager Jo Jennings here: http://twitter.com/#!/JoJennings194

Interesting BBC brief introduction to Lawrence Okoye, a 19 year old from South London (Croydon), who has put on hold his university place at Oxford (Law) to focus on the discus and the 2012 Olympics:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/14329281.stm

There was a nice article about okoye in evening standard the other day too.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-sport/article-23972803-rookie-lawrence-okoye-can-throw-up-a-surprise.do

BJA - thanks for posting the link to the article about Okoye - very interesting indeed. So much potential, it's unreal...better stop there with me praise and superlatives, otherwise risk of the Hoo Doo again

Yeah an exciting talent and interesting character. Is there anything he can't do?!

Interesting article BJA. I wonder how many other potential field star athletes there are lurking (maybe someone should have had a programme to test out British rugby players (professional, amateur, school) four years ago).

I hope Okoye's deferral is much like Mick Jagger's - his place at the LSE has been 'open' since 1962! It would be nice if he eventually settles into higher education at age 32/33 because he's had too much fun throwing 75m.

The UK trials kicked off in Birmingham last night, mostly with heats but there were a few finals too. Alex Smith confirmed his status as top dog amongst the UK's Hammer throwers, taking the title with a PB - 73.26m. I believe this is the longest mark by a UK thrower since Mick Jones threw 73.63m in 2004. Smith is getting tantalisingly close to the B standard for World/Olympics, which is 74m.

The women's Triple Jump final also featured a crop of competitors gunning for qualification standards. The B standard here is 14.10m, unfortunately the field wasn't as near to it as in the Hammer but it was a closely fought comp nevertheless, Laura Samuel reasserted her big game credentials. She took the title with a leap of 13.67m in the last round.

Full results for the men's 10,000m aren't available yet, but the race was won by Mexico's Juan Barrios in 27:38.12. The first Brit across the line, and therefore UK champion was James Walsh, who smashed his PB by 27 seconds in clocking 28:37.30. I'll give more results from this race when the UKA deign to publish them.

Up to the minute trials tweets by Isabre on http://twitter.com/#!/lsabre

Seems he is on first name terms with all the leading UK athletes.

I'm looking forward especially to the men's 100 and ladies 400m, the latter with hopefully a resurgent Ohurogu.

No Jack Green in the men's 400 m hudles or Tomlinson/Rutherford in the LJ.

Having fallen over and DNFed at the trials last weekend Mukhtar Mohammed came back in fine style at the Karlstad meet in Sweden last night. He won the 800m in a PB of 1:45.90. This gives him the B standard for the worlds. Presumably Mohammed and Osagie will be gunning for the A standard at Crystal Palace later this week. British 800m running is going through the roof at the moment. I think the improvement in depth will eventually yield a crop of sub 1:45 runners. I take the benchmark for depth being the number of sub 1:50 runners. Here are the stats from the last few years:

2011 (to date) - 37
2010 - 46
2009 - 35
2008 - 32
2007 - 31
2006 - 33

Congratulations to Helen Jenkins (wales) for winning the London Triathlon and qualifying for the Olympics! Fantastac performance today .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/triathlon/14430168.stm

What a fantastic women's 400m final - huge fan of Felix's