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Thanks Thor! And a big congrats to Charles Allen. 3 PBs in 3 races. After having NO opportunities to make the standard in Canada- our brilliant selectors would have left him at home except for the fact that he’s on the relay!
Charlie, what do you think about Ladji Doucouré’s start? He uses this method because if not he hit the first hurdle. His Pre-OG PB was 13.24, here he did 13.18, 13.24 and now 13.06… Former decathlete, who has concentrated on hurdles for only 2 or 3 years after a pubalgia… Some stats: 21 years old, 1m87 tall, leg length 0m98, 20.75 at 200m 2 years ago…
His hips seem way too low in set- but he gets there Ok and his height presents problems for a normal start. He looks extremely good!
BTW, I was very pleased to see Charles Allen go through to the final with 3 PBs in 3 races, down to 13.23! He’s a good guy who was utterly screwed by the Canadian season- only TWO meets all year- one with a 3mps headwind and the other with 2.1 behind, so they wouldn’t count his result and didn’t select him for the hurdles, but, as he made the relay and had the IOC standard, they let him enter the hurdles. Wonder who else is sitting at home who might have done something in Athens?
Give Thor an e-book or something! Thanks a lot!
Yes Thor! If you don’t have any of the E-books, contact info@charliefrancis and tell Em I sent you for a free download of any or all!
Tyler Christopher, Shane Niemi, Jennifer Joyce…
Wow. I almost hope we don’t get many more medals so they’ll be forced to make some changes!
Strange Charles Allen wasn’t qualified directly for hurdles, he finished 4th at Paris Golden League, it was enough to rank him among the potential finalists. I saw him there, but I admit that i wa smore occupy to see what the other Allen (Johnson) was doing. Charles Allen is also a sprinter, so maybe he needed more time to put all together over hurdles this season.
About Doucouré’s technique, her coach says the main thing on the “on your mark” position is to have the shoulder-hip-foot in the same line. To have his head and upper body very high allows his right knee to move higher and have a better first ground contact. 2 years ago, he had a high positive foot speed at the first ground touch-down, now things are better. Evelyn Ashford had more or less the same position on the blocks. He was criticized a lot in France by National direction because of that technique, but now he’s a 13.06 performer, we no longer hear these voices. The real problem is that his reaction times is very slow, he had the slowest in 1st round and in semi-final, around 0.200 each time which is very slow for a hurdler, Colin Jackson was constantly between 0.110 and 0.120, even after a false start. Maybe Ladji’s position doesn’t allow him to react properly, just a guess, what do you all think?
His hips were well below his shoulders on this occasion. Havn’t seen him before the semi, so I can’t comment on his other starts.
Of course Charles Allen would be considered a potential finallist- in any other country, just not in Canada. Canadian selectors were worried that, for every additional athlete, there’d be room for one less official, and they’d already been so liberal that there were almost as many athletes as officials going to Athens!
I’ll be back this afternoon with some pictures…
Good one Charlie, fair play.
Thor those are a great addition to the site - thanks for all the links.
We all greatly appreciate them.
AMEN! Heaven forbid they should leave any officials home (official what?) lord knows if we didn’t have them there wouldn’t be a Canadian team?!? Anyways, it is indeed pleasing to see Charles have so much success. Isn’t it something the powers that be raise the standards then only give the guy two opportunities to achieve it!
RandyG
It’s a zero-sum game. Spending money on meets only takes away from the funds available to send officials on trips to “learn” about high-performance.
Can I be so bold as to ask what is this bullshit sending an “apprentice coach” to Athens to learn about the Olympic experience when that same person has already been to the Olympics as an athlete? If they couldn’t learn before, what makes you think they can learn now?
Coaches should select themselves based solely on placing athletes on the team, from the highest numbers and rankings down. No athlete = no trip!!!
He ran for Guyana in the 2000 Oly. We just keep loosing athletes.