Baptiste beats Crawford

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Brilliant Baptiste beats former Olympic champion
Thursday, 04 February 2010

By Dominique Stafford

SPRINTER Leon Baptiste enjoyed one of the best victories of his career on Saturday as he overcame a strong field including former Olympic champion Shawn Crawford to win the 200metres at the Aviva International in Glasgow.

Competing for Great Britain against teams from the United States of America, Sweden, Germany and a Commonwealth Select squad, the 24-year-old from Enfield and Haringey Athletic Club was only expected to finish in third or fourth place in his event.

But Baptiste took full advantage of a blistering start – usually one of the weak points of his race – to pull clear of the field, and he held off a storming finish from Germany’s Robert Hering to cross the line in a time of 21.34seconds.

Antiguan Brendan Christian came third running for the Commonwealth, while Crawford – Olympic champion in 2004 and world indoor champion over the distance nine years ago – was a distant fourth.

Baptiste had said prior to the race that he felt honoured to have been given the chance to race against Crawford, and he was understandably thrilled to have won the race.

“I’m really pleased,” he said. “I was inspired by the guys in the race. Trying to compete against those guys is what I’m about.

“It gives me a lot of confidence going into the outdoor season. Unfortunately they don’t do 200m at the World Indoor Championships, but that performance puts me in really good shape.

“I’m in the sport to win Olympic medals and World Championship medals. Obviously this year I’ve got the Europeans, and hopefully that is what I’m aiming for.”

Baptiste’s run helped a British team captained by world heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis to secure overall victory in the event.

Meanwhile, Jon Pepper produced a superb run to claim a silver medal at the South of England cross country Championships at Parliament Hill on Saturday
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The 21-year-old from Enfield and Haringey Athletic Club was part of a four-man group who broke away from the main field during the first of three laps in the senior 15km race.

Pepper and Bedford’s Neilson Hall then pulled clear of the chasing duo on the second lap and, although Hall eventually claimed the win, Pepper deservedly finished second to claim his first major senior medal.

And Jordan Huggins continued his stunning form by storming to victory in the London Games’ under-20 60metres at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre.

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Baptiste had lane 5 and Crawford lane 2. Nevertheless It would be nice to see Shawn getting faster since he changed to HSI.

edit. Nah, I wasn’t looking at right column. Crawford had 4 and Babtiste 3… What’s wrong with Crawford?

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What’s wrong with Crawford?

Maybe nothing - the camber on the track is severe - could be he didn’t fancy it (injury risk so early in the season).

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30 + sprinter + John Smith is not a good combo- you need young fresh legs for that program.

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Why???

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lol, yea explain that one I’m all ears.

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Someone forgot to tell Carmelita bc she ran her fastest time just before her 30th birthday under John Smith. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Yea, I was doing some research on “the Jet”. If you look at video of her from about 3+ years ago her upper body was deficient in any kind of muscle mass. Also, she was more girly. Make no mistake about it, she was still pretty fast.

Fast forward today, her upper body has made a CLEAR transformation and her personality is more masculine and aggressive. So from what I gather, JS does not play around, he makes sure is athletes hit the gym.

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I had a friend who is trained by john smith and I did the program with him- and everyone in the squad got burnt out, or injured.

The volume of training HSI do is too much, the warm up last 1 hrs, the track volume is huge, repeat 6 sessions a week- older sprinters won’t succeed on the program. If Crawford didn’t have years of wear and tear he maybe suited to hsi - he still might post some good times if he can handle the work but I have my doubts.

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you know there can always be exceptions however on the balance of probabilities old leg’s don’t suit the program, Look at bolden and green they faded rapidly at the end of their careers, especially compared to frankie or linford- who still run well the their late 30s.

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I didn’t know HSI trained 6 days a week.

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Yea Linford in to age 36! But at the same time, wouldn’t faster times be reason for a shorter career? Guys in Linfords day ran 10.00/9.9 on average. Green consistently ran under 9 sec.

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What kind of therapy was in place?

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Its the degree of decline relative to PB, remember that 10.8 from Green and I recall Bolden running 10.4s at the end of his career. These guys had a sig decline relative to PB.

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Today Crawford performed poorly again…has anyone watched the 60 in Boston on tv?

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Not on until Sunday.

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How did Adam Harris run?

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6"65 in the heats…waiting for the final…got repecheage.

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Great, his start has been lacking but very talented sprinter.

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Thats cuz he focuses on it too much.

As far as Crawford, the only explanation I could think of is that sometimes when an athlete has to change and adjust so much about their technique, they run terribly at first. And with Crawford, he has A LOT to change and adjust. If i’m right, than these meets are just testing to see what he’s learned so far and putting it to use.