London GP

[OBUTRACKSTER]

So the London meet is this week and I figured I might as well open it up to discussion. As of now I haven't found a link to the meet site but I noticed the article on the T&FN homepage about all of the entrants in the 100. Here is the list.

LATEST LIST

Daniel Bailey (ANT)
Yohan Blake (JAM)
Usain Bolt (JAM)
Asafa Powell (JAM)
Michael Rodgers (USA)
Ivory Williams (USA)
Travis Padgett (USA)
Simeon Williamson (GBR)
Tyrone Edgar (GBR)
Rae Edwards (USA)
James Ellington (GBR)
Mark Lewis-Francis (GBR)
Harry Aikines Aryeetey (GBR)
Aaron Armstrong (TRI)
Craig Pickering (GBR)
Leevan Yearwood (GBR)

I am really hoping that Rae is in the "A" race but he might be in the latter race with all of the big names. I could really see 5 going sub 10 and I think 9 are capable of doing it (permitting it is a fast track and the weather is good). What are everyone's thoughts about this race? Also if anyone finds a link to the meet please post it!

[Gordon18]

aren't they gonna do heats then final like they usually do

[OBUTRACKSTER]

I haven't watched it in years past so I wouldn't know if they do rounds. Most of the Europe meets this year have just had an A and B race so I figured this meet would follow suit.

[nevetsllim]

Yes, there will be heats.

Some of the entry lists are very good, such as the men's and women's long jump, men's shot, m100 etc but it really irritates me that you rarely see high quality distance events at Crystal Palace and most of the middle/long distances are filled with the same American/Australian distance runners. There haven't been any high quality middle distance/distance events since 2006...

[glimp5k]

Unfortunately, this year the London GP conflicts with the Kenyan WC Trials.

[Top_end_speed]

I got tickets to go watch YaY

[gh]

Re: London GP

So the London meet is this week and I figured I might as well open it up to discussion. As of now I haven't found a link to the meet site ....

http://www.uka.org.uk/uka-major-events/ ... prix-2009/

[OBUTRACKSTER]

Thanks gh!

[bluequiet]

Well obviously the big discussion on this event would be, "How fast will Bolt go?"

If I were Bolt, I'd really use this race as excellent prep for working on race execution. Going into this race, his goal should be to execute in London way better than he executed in Paris. Even if he runs slower in London, if he runs a better race Bolt should walk away with a big smile on his face (then again he's always smiling these days).

I wouldn't imagine most guys that hover around 10 are going to produce a non-wind helped sub 10 at this meet. A good example of my thinking is Rodgers: in dead wind I don't see him running anything better than 10.05 here. If there is a juicy 1.x wind here, though, he might be able to dip like he did at USA's. I'd imagine he's mostly preping for Berlin here, anyway, which I would think bogs him down in the 10.0x range due to his training.

Rodgers is the best of iffy ten guys this year, so if isn't probably going to go sub 10 here, then neither will Ivory Williams, Padgett, Willamson, or any of the British guys.

With heats and a jucy 2ish wind (give or take .5), though, then your are correct and there could be lots of fireworks. Outside of whatever silly Bolt probably does.

A 1.7 wind and you'll see something really scary from Bolt.....and even scarier you might see 6 other guys running around after the race celebrating like they beat Bolt cause they PR'ed....even though they got beat by .2 or something. We are watching strange days in T&F.

[gh]

Yeah, let's have another Bolt thread; we don't have nearly enough

[Gordon18]

How about gayin the 200m how fast he gonna run, im expecting him to go full out, he said another 19.5 would be good. anyone got anything to say on this??

[RamGoat]

19.60.. with good wind 19.52.

[Haskell45]

I can see gay dropping a 19.65 or 19.60
Americans tend to run faster on American tracks for some reason.

[scratchman]

19.60.. with good wind 19.52.

Yep.

[RJMB_1]

I got tickets to go watch YaY

Have fun! I'll be going - my first live Athletics event (been watching for years) - Hooray!!