Timely Thoughts

What a day of athletics and time for me to start the measure of my Fantasy team.

Well first off, I should maybe have added China's Hao Wang as I would have been 75 points to the good. I had also removed Mexico's Eder Sánchez from my team after reading the rules about scoring. Originally I made up a team who I thought I could get double scoring from and the Mexican was down for both the 20k and 50k. Scrapped him once there was no chance of the big hit.

Women's 10000m

Another athlete that was added for double scoring was Turkey's Elvan Abeylegesse and after the withdrawal of Ethiopia's defending champion, Tirunesh Dibaba, in the 10000, I truly thought I was in with a chance of the gritty Turk getting in amongst the 100 points scored for 1st place.

But she never arrived at the races and dropped out of the proceedings with less than 3km to go. I kept urging her to move to the front and to make a race of it. The early stages were dismal and the Berlin crowd made the most of the funeral march as the Russian athlete, Mariya Konovalova, drummed out the tempo. My hope for the race, once Abeylegesse dropped out, was Ethiopia's Meseret Defar. Defar so often the bridesmaid had dipped under 30 minutes for the first time this year and seemed to have the Gold at her feet when the 5 East African athletes broke from the rest of the field with just over 5 laps to run.

Kenya 's Linet Chepkwemoi Masai took the pacemaking duties however it was not a pace that was aimed to grind down Defar who was accompanied by Ethiopian team mates Meselech Melkamu and Wude Ayalew. Masai's compatriot Grace Kwamboka Momanyi hung to the rear of the 5 that had broken free from the field.

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With 1km to go I began to question the tactics of Defar and was wondering if she was underestimating the kick of her rivals now that her strongest rival Dibaba was not present. The Kenyans mixed it up with Momanyi taking the lead but with no massive surge in pace but more the controlling of the pace to their liking. On each occasion that Defar had been beaten by Dibaba she had a applied the pressure from 400m to go only for Dibaba to kick by over the last 50m.

On this occasion Defar held back more and only down the back straight did she begin to apply pressure with Melkamu in attendance and the 'spindly' Masai losing contact with 200m to go mainly due to the backmarkers causing slight uncertainty.

Coming into the last 100m Defar was leading and Melkamu was a meter behind and sensible money would have had that for 1st and 2nd. Then out of nowhere Defar's form faltered and her legs came out from under her allowing Melkamu to go past with determination however Melkamu underestimated the finish of Masai who seemed to time her drive to perfection coming from 4th place to first and grabbing the Gold on the line. Melkamu had her arms up in victory where a dip for the line would have brought the coveted Gold.

Defar fell right out of the reckoning and went from 1st to 5th over the last 20m

As an event this drama was simply awe inspiring and had the crowds cheering in amazement.

Kenya took Gold and with Ethiopian Ayalew grabbing Bronze ahead of Momanyi, the first 5 athletes crossed the line within 1 second of each other after 25 laps of racing. Bitter disappointment for the Ethiopians and total joy for the tall sparkling Masai. 

Men's Shotput

In the Men's shotput I had Poland's Tomasz Majewski in my Fantasy team. What must be known is that you need to pick 10 male and 10 female athletes and the 20 have to come from 20 different countries, so the idea is to find a winner in from each country, scoring points for your representative up to 8th place.

In Majewski I had the World Leader however after the 1st throw of the USA 's Christian Cantwell of 21.54, I knew that my 100 points was not going to be an easy ride. Majewski opened with 21.36 to move in to 2nd. The Pole had been the only 'putter' to have gone over 21m in the qualifying and I knew that he had more to come. I certainly was amazed by Cantwell's performance as so often in the past he has turned up at a Championship without his 'game face'. The man I saw as the danger man was his compatriot Adam Nelson and this is mainly due to the explosive nature of the man under pressure. Nelson did indeed have a monster throw but faulted and could never really get in to contention for Gold.

With 3 throws to go and the field limited to 8, Cantrell had the luxury of being the last to throw. Majewski in his 4th throw burst to the fore with a shot of 21.68
to take the lead.

What should also be noted is that much to the delight of the home crowd, Ralf Bartels, had thrown 21.37 on his 3rd shot to move in to 2nd at that time. So Germany had a man in a podium place and the USA's Nelson and Reese Hoffa were both vying for a place on the podium, so nothing was certain.

Majewski now had the winning post in his sights and with a 5th throw of 21.91, he moved in to a position that most would have thought untouchable. During his throws you could see Cantwell skulking in the background, eyes fixed on his opponent and waiting his turn to first beat 21.68, which he failed to do on his 4th throw, and then 21.91.

Bartels was now clinging to 3rd place.

Cantwell stepped forward for his 5th attempt and with Herculean power he pushed out a World Leading 22:03 and good enough to take the Pole position. Gold was his. It was a monster throw at a monster moment and it will now probably serve to make Cantwell a more dangerous power for the future shot Championship events. Berlin was best for Cantrell.

Bartels held on to his Bronze after Hoffa fell 9cm short on his final throw to send the stadium into bliss with the country's first medal on Day1 at the Berlin World Athletic Champs.

Truly a memorable performance and I had to be happy with my 75 points.

Women's Heptathlon Day One

Day 1 of the Women's Heptathlon and I have the Ukraine's Natallia Dobrynska in my Fantasy Team. I did not have a single Brit in my team and the perfomance of Jessica Ennis is bitter sweet. Long have the Brits spoken of Ennis's ability and it seems as though Berlin has become her stage to perform. She has dominated 3 out of the 4 events on Day One and leads by 300 points with 3 events to come on Day 2.

The one event where Dobrynska had an opportunity to close the gap was the shotput and when she putt a distance of 15.82 she had closed the gap significantly on Ennis. At that stage the Brit could only command a 13.07 throw. Then in an amazing effort on her 3rd and final shot she reached 14.14. A Personal Best and the best time to produce such a throw. She had again increased her lead just as everyone was expecting the Beijing Olympic Champion, Dobrynska, to edge closer. This seemed to underline the waiting fact that Berlin may be her stage to rise to the top of the World.

In the 200m Ennis again proved to be supreme with her Season's best time of 23.25 compared to Dobrynska's 25.02.

The stage is almost set for Ennis's crowning and the only stumbling block she has to overcome is the Javelin as the Long Jump is one of her strengths and the 800m comes too late. On to day 2 and Gold.

For once the British press have finally prewritten a story for a future champion. Ooops, I hope I was not being too presumptuous about an Ennis win?

Men's 1500m Heats

There is one thing I will never get about the athletes in these heats and particularly those who are favoured to progress through to the next round and that is, why do they flirt so much with danger? Canada 's Nate Brannen almost gave the country's selectors an opportunity to justify their sometimes considered harsh selection policy by running a race best reserved for schoolboy tactics. He qualified as a fastest finisher however at times he was at 6's and 7's fighting with stragglers who should never have been at his heels. In contrast, in the same heat, Britain 's James Brewer ran a superb race to take 3rd in a PB time of 3:37.17 to float through to the next round.

South Africa 's Johan Cronje was disappointing to say the least and one wonders whether his flight home will be as enjoyable as the flight there. His tactics were wrong and his approach damning whereas his compatriot Peter van der Westhuizen advanced from the same heat as my Fantasy runner favourite, Kenya's Asbel Kipruto Kiprop.

One athlete who impressed me came from heat 3 and that was Morocco's Amine Laalou and on that performance, to me, is a strong contender for a medal even if Kenya's Augustine Kiprono Choge won the heat.

France's Mehdi Baala progressed with relative ease, as did defending champion, the USA's Bernard Lagat.

One athlete who stood out as a similar athlete to the USA's Alan Webb was Australia's Ryan Gregson. Much is expected of Gregson however he currently seems ill equipped to cope with the rounds required at Championship level. Getting through the rounds is often considered more difficult than the final itself.   

Women's SteepleChase heats

While everyone's eyes are on Russia's Gulnara Galkina, mine are on my Fantasy runner, Spain's Marta Domínguez. Even though Domínguez qualified as a 5th place finisher in the slowest time I can feel confident of her performance in the Final.

The standard in this event is amazing and to see the progress to where 15 athletes run faster than 9 minutes 35 seconds to qualify shows how this event has come in to its own over a period of 4 years since Helsinki where the event made its debut at the World Championships .

The rest

For the rest of Day One, I of course have Jamaica's Usain Bolt awaiting in my Fantasy Team however an interesting performance was that of Asafa Powell and if the truth be told he looked the best out of any of the sprinters, who knows maybe to be out of the spotlight is exactly what he needs while the media focuses on the Gay vs Bolt scenario. And talking these two athletes, both looked rather ragged with their starts.

The last event on Day 2 determines the fastest man in the World and by the way I don't have Gay as my USA representative, instead I have Allyson Felix.

TheEd