European Athletics Championships

A chance to see how UK Athletics has progressed in the last two years, albeit only against some of the best in Europe. Two years until 2012, I wonder if any of the current crop in Barcelona can prove if they have a chance in two years time.

The World Juniors produced some good results for UK Athletics, so there might be some hope that our athletes can finally deliver on the World stage.

With any luck we will get at least one medal from the 10,000m tonight, my prediction is Mo Farah getting the gold and Chris Thompson coming home in 4th.

I take that back. A f*cking blinding run by Thommo, I am so pleased for the lad. Has been suffering with injuries for years, finally glad to see him fulfilling his potential from years back. With Mo it was always likely to be gold, anything else would have been seen as a disaster.

Is this where I bring up (probably for the 253rd time) that Mo Farah is an Old Isleworthian, and trains at St Mary's?

Dead chuffed for him, after his health problems earlier in the year glad he is back to form. Chuffed also for Thompson, you could see how much it meant to him too.

Will be interesting to see if anyone can catch the aptly named Jesús España in the 5000m. Can't have the Spanish winning eveything.

Mo will 'ave 'im.

International said:

I take that back. A f*cking blinding run by Thommo, I am so pleased for the lad. Has been suffering with injuries for years, finally glad to see him fulfilling his potential from years back. With Mo it was always likely to be gold, anything else would have been seen as a disaster.

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Didn't see it, out watching footy, but what sort of time was that ?

Watching the 800 heats at the mo, Eurosport of course cos the Beeb just have a bunch of overpaid knobs sitting around talking b*ll*cks, again the standard doesn't look too good, perhaps the drug testers are getting their act together.

No benefit in running fast times in the championships, hence the slow times. Lack of pacemakers too.

Although I don't know why the top runners don't just run their "normal" race in the finals.

Jason H said:

Is this where I bring up (probably for the 253rd time) that Mo Farah is an Old Isleworthian, and trains at St Mary's?

Dead chuffed for him, after his health problems earlier in the year glad he is back to form. Chuffed also for Thompson, you could see how much it meant to him too.

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I don't think you have Jase. Did I ever tell you that I once beat him? I also have seen him out at Oceana in Kingston (in the early days), to say he used to enjoy a night out would be an understatement

Jase, for me the performance of Thommo was better than that of Mo. I know Mo has had his problems this year, for Thommo to get Silver after what he has gone through over the last few years was fantastic.

I agree with both you and ******** to a certain degree. The standard of the 10,000m was poor, not taking anything away from the performances of both Thommo and Mo. There is no way that people should have been off the pace when they were only churning out 68 sec laps, running a little under 14mins 30secs for the first 5,000m.

It seems that the European standards have dropped recently, there aren't many athletes that are running consistent top 10 times in the sprints and long distances. Either way by winning a few medals it will hopefully give the nation a boost ahead of the Olympics in two years time. I hope that it doesn't hide the fact that there is a lack of talent in the throws, and that our sprinters cannot repeat the performances of recent years.

Pleased for MLF. Always was a live wire, even as a 15 year old when he won the English Schools 100m. About time he got his career back on track, still nowhere near the potential he showed when running 9.97 as a 19 year old. Having said that he will always be an Olympic Gold Medalist.

As for John Inverdale, Christophe Lemaitre can be put up there with the likes of Powell, Bolt and Gay. F*ck off you tw*t. He boasts a PB of 9.98secs, the other lads run 9.7 secs for fun.

I wouldn't have liked to be the photo-finish person on that one! To me it looked like Obikwelu (sp?) followed by the French chap, then Chambers then MLF, but that is a real fillip for him - he was one I've been disappointed with over the years as someone with so much potential but has never really done anything, a bit like Malcolm in the 200m.