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SPORTS: Athletics world championships
Aug. 31st, 2015 08:43 amI've been following the athletics world championships in Beijing via the BBC for the past 10 days, either by watching the night sessions live or via the highlights programme. What will I do without it?
Of course, the whole thing has been clouded over by the claims about doping over the summer, and a little voice wondered how many of these medals will be taken away over the next few years. But I nearly teared up as Jessica Ennis-Hill underlined her dominance in the heptathlon in the 800m; I enjoyed watching Bolt win it, speedy Price-Fraser and her incredible hair, smiling Schippers, smooth Felix and many other sprinters.
I also really enjoyed many field competitions, well, the jumps, anyway. The more we saw of them, the more they created their own dramas, especially with the run up to the pit in this fast stadium. Generally, it was great fun to have the build-up of heats and semis for the track events, where you could watch who was doing well and try to gauge how much they were holding back. Although it's weird to have three heats in 'semi-finals', the usual top two plus two fastest qualifiers felt fair. After all, if you just needed to run fast enough to win, that's be as fast as you would run, but people who had run well under that time had proved they deserved to be there too. When British athletes were in that fastest loser spot, it became quite nervy.
I presume that budget cuts led to the main studio being in Salford, with some commentators then flying back early from Beijing. Steves Cram and Backley were impressive, as ever. I mostly like Gabby Logan as a presenter and Michael Johnson is a class act (although the producers over-rate him as a voice over guy. He has a resonant voice, but he doesn't quite know how to use it like an actor would.) Yes, there was a lot of repetition and padding while there wasn't any live athletics on, but, overall, I enjoyed it.
Of course, the whole thing has been clouded over by the claims about doping over the summer, and a little voice wondered how many of these medals will be taken away over the next few years. But I nearly teared up as Jessica Ennis-Hill underlined her dominance in the heptathlon in the 800m; I enjoyed watching Bolt win it, speedy Price-Fraser and her incredible hair, smiling Schippers, smooth Felix and many other sprinters.
I also really enjoyed many field competitions, well, the jumps, anyway. The more we saw of them, the more they created their own dramas, especially with the run up to the pit in this fast stadium. Generally, it was great fun to have the build-up of heats and semis for the track events, where you could watch who was doing well and try to gauge how much they were holding back. Although it's weird to have three heats in 'semi-finals', the usual top two plus two fastest qualifiers felt fair. After all, if you just needed to run fast enough to win, that's be as fast as you would run, but people who had run well under that time had proved they deserved to be there too. When British athletes were in that fastest loser spot, it became quite nervy.
I presume that budget cuts led to the main studio being in Salford, with some commentators then flying back early from Beijing. Steves Cram and Backley were impressive, as ever. I mostly like Gabby Logan as a presenter and Michael Johnson is a class act (although the producers over-rate him as a voice over guy. He has a resonant voice, but he doesn't quite know how to use it like an actor would.) Yes, there was a lot of repetition and padding while there wasn't any live athletics on, but, overall, I enjoyed it.
