The heats:
http://folk.uio.no/perel/EICHeat1.mpg
http://folk.uio.no/perel/EICHeat2.mpg
http://folk.uio.no/perel/EICHeat3.mpg
http://folk.uio.no/perel/EICHeat4.mpg
Right-click and save.
Semi-finals:
http://folk.uio.no/perel/EICSemi1.mpg
http://folk.uio.no/perel/EICSemi2.mpg
Right-click and save.
Hmmm… Ronald made twice the same catastrophic start, exactly like 1 week ago in Liévin. There’s obviously something wrong. It seems that this pattern is now locked in his body memory, it will take time to fix it, i don’t see it beeing fixed before today. The problem is to know if a time about 6.55 (which is Ronald’s limit with such terrible start) will be enough to win. The UK guy in front was going to win his SF in an great time, 6.55 or a little better had he not been injured. There are several guys beeing able to run under 6.60.
On the female side, the Greeks are ready, 2 fatest qualification times for the final… Kokloni is Thanou’s clone in technique gesture and race pattern. Obviously she won’t run 6.96 tomorrow, but Gevaert is no longer favourite.
Talking about favourites, Christine Arron injured her hamstring, just under glutes. She didn’t felt that pain at warm-up, anyway from the start i thought Oh there’s something wrong, her body angle was higher as usual, and this made her muscles working in a different way they use to. I think it was also the cause of her problem last year at World Indoor Champs final: technical mistake at start, and if she pushes she injures herself. Last year she didn’t tried to push, this year she did it and get injured.
i wonder if the Greeks have run their races… do you think there is still something in there? mainly for Kokloni -who doesn’t come from nowhere BTW; Karastamati has done very, very well already! first major and 21y
it’s getting difficult now for Arron career-wise, don’t you think? i mean she MUST do something in Finland! very nice runner thought and it’d be nice if she sticks around!
good luck!
Christine thinks there is a bad sign upon her life… What can we say…
Since 1998, each time she entered in a major, there was a problem…
1999 WCh finalist only becuse of knee injury
2000 OG semi-finalist because of flue
2001 WCh withdrew out of form and various injuries
2003 WCh missed the final due to unknown (?) reason
2004 WICh missed her start in final due to unknown '?) reason
2004 OG missed her start in SF due to unknown (?) reason
2005 EICh injured during the race.
If i’m my memory serves me right, she entered in the last 3 majors beeing unbeaten during the season. Really on of the worst career i can think of. The biggest miss was 2000 Olympics when she broke her training bests in August and had a flue 1 week before Sydney.
Along with her persistent mistake to engage an incompetant psychologist in 2003-2004 (Christine fired her just after Olympics), she had bad public words to her coach after their split and re-join in fall 2004, which any coach in the World wouldn’t have accept. But how many coaches would love to train a 10.73 sprinter?
thanks for this input!
in 1998 and despite personal interest in the final, i loved her running! smooth!
but since then, nothing!
initialy, i thought there was some serious injury in there and she needed time, of course, but if the same thing, as you say, happens over and over again, having raced well before the big ones and then she does nothing -for her standards- there is something wrong in there…
anyway, waiting for final tomorrow, now!
all the best!
Thor,
200s tomorrow, PLEASE!
personal interest!
thanks for all these, anyway!
She encountered injuries problem in 1998 too, indoors and in May, making her unable to train for some time. Her 10.73 is one of the beautiful race to watch. His then-coach did obviously a great work with her, with a strong emphasis on technique. However, the huge specific work in all aspects of training may have make lead to injuries… However Christine would have never reach international level without that former coach. It took years to correct her technical flaws and strong lordosis. It should be noted that that’s her first injury since she gave birth in June 2002. Before she was injured several times a year.
yes, the emphasis on technique shows in that race!
i understand that this coach is an ex-coach now; why did she leave him/her? was it because of the repeated unjuries? she wanted to try something different?
the long time away of injuries says a lot, but still… she doesn’t perform! if she had an injury in 1998 as well and pulled up that performance and can’t do it now, something must have happened between…
She left her former coach right after Sydney’00. Because he wasn’t able to fix her start, because she was tired of injuries, because he was like a dictator. Many of the athletes who left him described some traumatism after… This coach was a tecnhical genius but had difficult temper. Also, the 10.73 came from nowhere, she jogged 10.81 in semis and some hour later 10.73 helped with wind +2m. Later that week she blowed a 9.66 anchor leg. A fantastic week. My feeling is that it came too early in Christine’s career. She felt so easy in these races that she had no doubt she will run faster later. Since then, she has never run faster than 10.95… She has run many years after the 10.73 and 9.66 speed feelings, but never found it again. That’s really frustrating. Now all this is over but she faces other difficulties. Christine is a beautiful sprinter, a beauty, but a difficult temper. 
The worst thing in all this is that athletics didn’t made Christine happier and a better woman. In recent public quotes, she said she felt that there were dangerous people, and has cleaned everything in her life, want to do it all alone, gives confidence in nobody (not even in her coach, :mad: she said she gave him a second chance after 2004 failure) and don’t let emotion interfer in her job on track. Emotions are essential in athletics success. She wins or she loses, it seems she feels the same.
too much, too soon? very possible! and then you think that these times can be run just like that, whereas consistency up there is times harder -i imagine 
the “emotion-less” part worries me a lot and really i can’t see her coming back to 10.80s with this attitude, as much as i’d like to see this, because i like her a lot as an athlete!
hope i am wrong on this!
Unfortunately the same thing happened… Now Ronald and his coach will have a lot of work to do to put this bad start pattern. Since Karlsruhe 6.45, Ronald had 3 races at NC, 2 races at Liévin meeting, and 3 races at EIC, all all 8 races had a terrible start accel. It is locked in his body memory, if someone knows how to fix it please post something!
Well done for Jason Gardner, i think that’s a SB, when it counts!
The final:
http://folk.uio.no/perel/EIC60Final.mpg
http://folk.uio.no/perel/EIC60Slow.mpg
Right-click and save.
How do you feel about the head down stuff now? When you bend your back you are forced out of position. Your hip goes down and your foot strikes ahead of BDC during a deep accel period forcing you to roll over the foot before you can push. When that happens, it’s all over! Do whatever it takes to keep the back straight and let the back bring the head up.
you mean straight back+head as one thing on a straight line? and the head follows what the back is doing?
thanks!
It’s a lot easier to keep things in line that way
Interesting race…Interesting comments Charlie. I think Pognon played into Jason’s hands at the start. If u notice his previous race patterns, he comes out quite slow and then picks up strong at the end. In the final, he tries 2 match Jason and ends up stumbling (maybe cause he was way over his Centre of G). This then caused him to tighten up badly. I think he was lucky to get that 3rd spot! He saw Gold and Silver was out of his grasp and gave up! the guy in lane 8 almost got him (they had the same time.) Dramas dramas 
Would have been a Brit 1-2-3 if the other Brit hadn’t injured himself in the semis. It’s strange how the times across the board in men and women’s finals were slower then the heats and semis, can’t understand why, this is indoors so the weather can’t have changed. Only the men’s and women’s winners did their best time in the final. Pognon is this years Asafa, he’ll run well outdoors too then fail in WC, not really anything to worry about, his time will come.
Can’t be more agree with you… Ronald surely doesn’t master the head-down start. His coach believes this style is efficient…
I’m sure that between semis and final, his coach told him to “push” longer and not stand up his head at 10m (like he did in his 7 previous races). Well, he did so at 13m…
I’m not in Madrid so reading the news today, i was completely down… Ronald : “I’m satisfied with my race because i have nothing to reproach myself with. I wasn’t afraid before the race but i had a bad start. I’m not a 60m runner anyway, this winter my goal was to get closer to National Record (6.53), and now i have the European Record and a medal at European Champs so i cannot complain”.
Had he won the race, his post-race comment would have been exactly the same.
6.45 not a 60m runner? He’s 5th on all-time list behind Mo, Ben, Cason and Harden…
6.62 when you are a 6.45 performer is 97.4%, worth at 100m 10.26 when you are a 10.00 performer.
I’m so mad when people have not the will to win. I’m sure Ronald is not much deceived. If you take Pérec, after a loss she would have piss off everybody in the press room and go back with a win in the next race. Today people wants to win less than before.
Can anyone help me find a clip of the women’s final?