Men's 4x400m

[SteveK26]

Jimbo
That was the worst US team in living memory, and they still beat us out of sight. And look who the winners were!
It matters little to me how bad the rest are/were, I'm judging our 400 runners on their own merits. And right now they are poor. With no immediate likelyhood of getting any better.

[iain]

The relay is a test of your FOUR best runners. You don't need six or eight amazing runners. If you look at the 400m final.
1xGrenada - No team
1xDominican Republic - Only two good runners
1xTrinidad - Similar depth to us
2xBelgium - Only two good runners
2xBahamas - Better than us
1xAustralian - Not enough other decent runners
Having three semi finalists is more than most nations managed

[SteveK26]

Iain
...but why would you want to judge our 400 men against the falling standards of the event world wide.? That doesn't make me feel any better. It makes me feel like we've just missed a golden opportunity.
Unless you recognise that something is broken, you wont fix it. We need to raise our 400 standards, men and women.

[jjimbojames]

Steve - a little perspective! That American team just ran 2.56 and the Bahamas became the third fastest nation of all time. If you genuinely believe the hype that there is just 300,000 Bahamians on the planet, you'll also believe that those Jamaicans who turn up to the Penn Relays or to Crystal Palace have travelled over to watch too

Note also - there's a great spread of countries involved and one reason is that in the past, small nations like Grenada and even Jamaica would lose their talent to America, as good kids were picked up to go to their college system, and then ended up running for them (some went earlier, for the promise of greater wealth e.g. Sanya). Now, athletes like Kirani James is training in America but running for his own country and getting financial aid, whilst Jamaica is in a position to hold onto its own talent and train them over there - the world has caught up!

Yes - we don't have the same number of sub-45 runners in one period as we had once, but the sport has changed, and until you recognise that, you will always be disappointed. I would LOVE us to be able to churn out a finalist for every major champs, but that is getting harder and harder. As with distance running, once you lose the chance of being at the top, participation falls down, as why work hard just to make a semi - so the talent pool shrinks

I also think you're being unfair on our junior talent - they don't have the absolute top end individual (apart from Clovis, perhaps) but there is a few more of them - and good competition that sustains itself from u17 into university level will help keep those kids (your Kirsty McAslens, Rachel Dickens etc) in the sport

[iain]

Iain
...but why would you want to judge our 400 men against the falling standards of the event world wide.? That doesn't make me feel any better. It makes me feel like we've just missed a golden opportunity.
Unless you recognise that something is broken, you wont fix it. We need to raise our 400 standards, men and women.

It isn't falling standards it's just that one country wasn't completely dominant. And why compare it to this? Because they are the competition and our team races against them, thus they are comparable.

[ifihadwings]

has anyone thought that Levine simply may have been too tired after the heats???

in the individual he ran flat out for 3rd 45.5 in the heats and then came 6th running 45.6 in the semi final. coming back 3 days later running 45.9 it would have been a brave coach to think he'll run faster the next day...

[trickstat]

has anyone thought that Levine simply may have been too tired after the heats???

in the individual he ran flat out for 3rd 45.5 in the heats and then came 6th running 45.6 in the semi final. coming back 3 days later running 45.9 it would have been a brave coach to think he'll run faster the next day...

45.9 on first leg is arguably intrinsically superior to 45.5 on third.

[jjimbojames]

has anyone thought that Levine simply may have been too tired after the heats???

in the individual he ran flat out for 3rd 45.5 in the heats and then came 6th running 45.6 in the semi final. coming back 3 days later running 45.9 it would have been a brave coach to think he'll run faster the next day...

You mean like Conrad and Martyn did

Certainly, that pattern doesn't look good, but he has tweeted about running to qualify in the relay - I think he wasn't maxing it, assuming he was safe (a fair prospect, given the he's led off the GBR relays several times this year). I still think they thought that Dai would replace Jack - otherwise, it wouldn't be a fair trial to delete the guy not running a similar leg - and then he blew them all away