In terms of athetics as a whole, these are the performances that stood out for me.....
Usain Bolt of Jamaica...100m / 200m / 4x100m.....The games were dominated by the presence of Usain Blot as he set a new Olympic record in the 100m with a time of 9.63 seconds, five one hundredths faster than his own record of 9.68 seconds set in Berlin. In the 200m, Bolt won in 19.32 seconds as the Jamaicans took the top three places. In the mens 4 x 100m relay, the Jamaican team set a new world record in a time of 36.84 seconds. Bolt is quite simply the superstar of athletics and this Olympics have even further enhanced his reputation.
David Rudisha of Kenya.....800m........In terms of middle distance running, David Rudisha is simply one of the best ever. Coached by Brother Colm O'Connell from Mallow in Cork, Rudisha led from gun to tape to set a new world record in the 800m in a time of 1m 40.91s. At just 23 years old, he has already ran 6 of the top 10 fastest times in the 800m ever.
Mo Farah of Great Britain....5,000m and 10,000m....Winning the 10,000m was an achievement in itself but winning the 5,000m race just five days later was really something special.
Irish Performances in Athletic events.....
In most cases, we can just hope Irish athletes can get through the various heats and success is measured in terms of being able to make a semi-final or final. What's obvious from the London Olympics is that Ireland has only one world class athlete and that is Rob Heffernan. Finishing a very credible 9th in the 20k walk and an amazing 4th in the 50k walk, his performance was in a different league in comparison to the other Irish athletes. Not only did Rob take 7m 36s off his own 50k national record but he was over 21 minutes inside the Olympic 'A' standard that was required to be there.
Brendan Boyce.....50k race walk.......Finished in 29th position in a time of 3:55:01, almost 4 minutes inside the 'A' standard.
Laura Reynolds...20k race walk.......Finished 23rd in a personal best time of 1:31:02, well inside the 'A' standard of 1:33:30.
Fionnuala Britton.....5,000m Round 1......Although she didn't proceed through to the final, Fionnuala's time of 15:12.97 was a personal best.
Derval O'Rourke......100m Hurdles........Derval pulled out two season's best times of 12.91 seconds to make it through to the semi-finals. It was obvious though that Derval doesn't have the speed in the last 50 metres to compete against the best. However, when it comes to getting out of the blocks and over the first hurdle, she is world class. Her best chance of getting a medal in future must surely be over 60m in an indoor championships.
All of the Irish performances weren't great of course. It's all very well waving the Green flag but leaving aside those with injuries, many did not come close to personal or seasonal best times or even get near the 'A' standard which is poor.
Outside of Athletics, the star Irish performance was of course Katie Taylor who won an Olympic Gold in boxing.
In overall terms, the 2012 London Olympics were probably one of the best ever. Superbly organised with a fantastic atmosphere. Rio in 2016 will have to do something really special to beat it.
That's my take on the 2012 Games. Which performances did you think were the highlight of the Games???
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Mo Farah and Usain Bolt...double champions of the 2012 Olympics
7 comments:
Fun to read an Irish perspective on the Olympics. Thanks for sharing.
Fair play to all the athletes for making the qualifying standards in the first place. As to why they don’t perform to their best on the big day, that’s a big topic to figure out. One man who did the business was Bradley Wiggins, winning the Tour De France and Olympic Gold in the space of 2 weeks… who needs a “taper”. For me the volunteers made the Games the success they were. They were everywhere in London, always smiling and helpful, both at the games or on the streets. And I couldn’t leave out Tim McCarthy’s basketball commentary, I’ll miss all those “downtown 3”, “shake and bake” and “coast to coast” moves on the court. Withdrawal symptoms setting in already….
Ref Timmy McCarthy....Don't forget the 'Boom Shakalaka!'
I noticed a letter in one of the papers pointing out that Michelle De Bruin was the first irish woman to win gold and is still officially the holder of Olympic medals. The reality is that several athletes who had previousily been banned for drug offences won medals at these games. So do we ignore De Bruins medals or pretend they never existed ?
I had actually forgotten about Michelle De Bruin and her medals.
A newspaper asked John Treacy about the legacy of De Bruin some time back and he gave the following answer....."My position is that we have moved on. The legacy would be that we now have a very good anti-doping policy in place."
I was a bit disappointed the marathons didnt finish in the Olympic stadiums as often happens. And there seemed little comment on the loop marathon course which seemed designed for viewing and tv coverage rather than to produce good times. Do runners have any thoughts on this ? One of the tv commentators did remark the high number of corners would make for slow times and this seemed to be the case.
I'd prefer if it had gone into a stadium finish but in saying that the coverage was great in fairness. Not sure was it because of the looped course or not.
I also don't think the times in an Olympic marathon really matter (to the competitors) and a seriously fast time wont ever really happen. Championship races are a different story to city marathons. I'd love to see records go in the Olympic marathon but a competitor isn't going to go for a record with the risk of blowing up and not getting a medal. In that sense I don't think the slow course is a major thing because at the end of it all its a race against the other competitors as opposed to the clock.
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