World Championships

thirtyfoot

Eileen is 4th after Round 1!!!

Dodge

Decent start for O'Keefe. 70.93 has her in 4th place after 1st round. should be easily enough to get through to last 8 anyway. She'll need to smash her PB to get a medal though (72.45 is in third place and thats after only 1 round)

EDIT; Campbell finished in 7th in his heat in 1.46.77 very unlucky to be ill during the week

EDIT 2; although the hammer is hotting up. Eilleen has definitely made the top 8

Rineanna

It's really encouraging to see O' Keefe consistently throwing over 70m. She's really risen to the occasion.

Dodge

She finished in an excellent 6th place. 70.93 was her best. 3 others over 69

Cragg up next in the tougher 5,000m heats

Rineanna

Well done to her, excellent performance. I just wish the Euro's were on next year!

SitUbuSit

Uugh, watching Cragg lately is like watching Sonia back in 96/97. It's a case of will he run well, decently or crap. Unfortunately, today it was the latter. It wasn't a fast race and he finished in 14:00.

But he's run some great times this season...so I wonder what's up. But he put himself in some awful positions as well.

This is the one downer I've had at this WC.

I'll be annoyed for the rest of the day now

Rineanna

For the love of God, he's as erratic! I wonder what his race plan was (if he had one at all!). He didn't look too confident from the very start.
And as for that Swedish joker.............

Domer

Overall I think the Irish team has equiped itself well on the world stage, and are set up nicely for next years olympics. The experience gained in this kind of competition is paramount in building confidence and consistancy. I have said it here before, but major championships are not won by those why perform best, but by those who mess up least.

Cuddihy, O'Rourke, Hession, Britton, McGettigan, O'Keefe, Cambell, Gillick and Heffernan all did very well, and justified their selection. If Cambell moves to 1500, I can see all these make an olympic final next year.

Cullen and Carey have some improvement to do it on the world stage, but the experience will stand to them.

Cragg needs to learn to run in championships. He has the pedigree and the performance to merit a place in the final... but he is not their!

I you add in those athletes not there... Reale, Fagan, Ryan (HJ) and Chamney the future looks bright.

Well done to all!

Rineanna

What would anyone think of Mary Cullen as a Steeplechaser? I mention this because, as was pointed out on t.v last night, her best event is actually the 3000m but the step up to the 5000m just doesn't do her talent justice. She has a good flat speed (8.47 this year) and I think would do well in the steeple. This is Britton's first real season as a steeplechaser and look at how well she's done, and add Clitheroe's reasonably successful switch to the Steeple (Cullen has a faster flat speed than her and is 8 years younger) and her prospects at the event are quite good. Any opinions?

Pherekydes

Rineanna wrote:

What would anyone think of Mary Cullen as a Steeplechaser? I mention this because, as was pointed out on t.v last night, her best event is actually the 3000m but the step up to the 5000m just doesn't do her talent justice. She has a good flat speed (8.47 this year) and I think would do well in the steeple. This is Britton's first real season as a steeplechaser and look at how well she's done, and add Clitheroe's reasonably successful switch to the Steeple (Cullen has a faster flat speed than her and is 8 years younger) and her prospects at the event are quite good. Any opinions?

Clitheroe is way faster than Cullen. She has 2:03 and 4:01 to her name. Cullen has more stamina, perhaps. Not sure about her trying the 'chase. Recall Janowska and Zhadorozhnaya in Helsinki 2 years ago? Fabulous flat credentials, but throw in the barriers and...

I don't think the steeple will prove to be Britton's best event. She has very little basic speed, only 4:18 for the 1500m. Maybe 10k eventually?

Rineanna

Slow coach wrote:

Clitheroe is way faster than Cullen

Over the shorter distances which she specialised in before switching to the steeple this year, yes, but the opposite is true over the longer distance in question, the 3000m. I don't know, it was just a suggestion. The 5000m doesn't seem to be doing her justice in my view anyway.

Common Sense

I agree with all of the above regarding the performances of the Irish athletes. With the exception of Cragg, I regard the rest as works in progress who can only benefit from exposure to this level of competition. At this stage, I see no reason why McGettigan, Hession, O'Keeffe, Cuddihy, O'Rourke are not good enough to make next year's olympic final. If Cragg gets his act together, I'd include him also. Gillick may be just a little off, but a definite semi-finalist. What these athletes need now is plenty of Sports Council support and encouragement. Eamonn Coghlan made the very good suggestion tonight that if O'Keeffe was to go abroad and coached by a specialist Hammer coach she could even ease on to the podium at the olympics. But to do this she is going to need to be supported financially.

Domer

Since we are talking about athletes changing events...

Campbell - Move to 1500

And the one I think may be less obvious:
Carey to move to 800. If she can run the hurdles in 57, she has basic speed, and since she can run that over hurdles, she has strength!! Two ingredients that make a good half miler!!

Not sure I agree with Cullen moving to the chase... but I cant see her win a medal over 5k anytime soon... I hope I am wrong

Rineanna

Domer wrote:

Carey to move to 800. If she can run the hurdles in 57, she has basic speed, and since she can run that over hurdles, she has strength!! Two ingredients that make a good half miler!!

That's an interesting one, allright. Jenny Meadows made the move up from the 400 flat too.

Domer wrote:

Not sure I agree with Cullen moving to the chase...

Ya, I was just floating the idea and was just wondering would a change in events improve her chances on teh World and Euro stage. I saw her in action in the 3000m at the Cork city sports and she was v. impressive' I'd just love to see her do the same on world stage.

Pherekydes

Domer wrote:

Since we are talking about athletes changing events...

Campbell - Move to 1500

Campbell is already the national champion. I reckon it'll be his best event, but he'd be well advised to continue with the eights, also. I think he'll have a biggish breakthrough in the 15 next year, so long as he stays with Mottram's group.

Casei11

very disappointing by cragg

thirtyfoot

Domer wrote:

And the one I think may be less obvious:
Carey to move to 800. If she can run the hurdles in 57, she has basic speed, and since she can run that over hurdles, she has strength!! Two ingredients that make a good half miler!!

If only it was that simple, the move from 400 to 800 is not as easy as people think. She is a low 56 hurdler which is a 'b' standard and the 'a' is 55.60. The 'a' in the 800 is 2 flat which is quick. She should stay where she is and has a much better chance of getting the 4H standard for next year. She is coached by Nick Dakin I believe so I don't think he'll be pushing her up. Its the Gerry Kiernan philosophy and if at first you don't succeed, move up a distance:)
Gillick stuck at 4's and is thriving and I'm convinced will go sub 45 (if he can get his 200m time down of course). Dave McCarthy has tried the move and so far the jury is out after one season.

Pherekydes

Tingle wrote:

Dave McCarthy has tried the move and so far the jury is out after one season.

Big Dave's PB are 46.53 and 1:47.71, yes?

IAAF pts: 1079 and 1090 respectively! So based on the points, he is already better at the 800m. Surprise, isn't it? Another winter of 800m training and who knows how good he could get?

thirtyfoot

Slow coach wrote:

Big Dave's PB are 46.53 and 1:47.71, yes?

IAAF pts: 1079 and 1090 respectively! So based on the points, he is already better at the 800m. Surprise, isn't it? Another winter of 800m training and who knows how good he could get?

Still 12 months in and no dramatic progress then. In Carey's case a move to 800 would also involve at least 12 months settling down in the event at which time Beijing will be gone. Thats my point referencing McCarthy. She should stay at 4H. Carey has a 52.6 flat time from last year and she admits herself she can cut her differential as its too high. When she does and when she gets her 4 flat time down she will be in the 55's.

On McCarthy I reckon he could have potential when he totally gets to grips with the event. The difference between his performances and Chamneys in the champs this year as been interesting in that McCarthy has outperformed Chamney even with a slower PB. This is probably due to McCarthy superior speed and Chamneys lack of so I'm not dissing McCarthy's 800 performances, I think he can do well at it.

thirtyfoot

I missed the live action yesterday and only saw the highlights of the long jump. What a performance by Saladino. Its surely the ultimate sign of a champion to get a PB in the last jump of the competition to win it. He looked so cool and in control. Compare him to Alan Webb. Flying all season, running amazing times and when the crunch comes he folds. What Saladino did is similar to Wilkinson's drop goal in 2003 or Maurice Fitzgerald against the dubs in Thurles few years back. Balls of steel!

Common Sense

Tingle wrote:

If only it was that simple, the move from 400 to 800 is not as easy as people think. She is a low 56 hurdler which is a 'b' standard and the 'a' is 55.60. The 'a' in the 800 is 2 flat which is quick. She should stay where she is and has a much better chance of getting the 4H standard for next year. She is coached by Nick Dakin I believe so I don't think he'll be pushing her up. Its the Gerry Kiernan philosophy and if at first you don't succeed, move up a distance:)
Gillick stuck at 4's and is thriving and I'm convinced will go sub 45 (if he can get his 200m time down of course). Dave McCarthy has tried the move and so far the jury is out after one season.

Before we talk too glibly about Carey moving to 800, its perhaps sobering to note that no Irish womon has broken 2:00 for the 800. The Irish record is held by Sonia at 2:00 something. Look at the recent WC 800 - 2 of the British girls ran 1:59 for their semis and neither were close to making the final. Personally, I believe we need someone with the speed of a Joanne Cuddihy and the middle distance calibre of a Sonia to get below 2. As regards the rest of the foregoing discussion, I'm in the camp that believes that she should stick with the 400H. I also believe McCarthy can get down to somewhere around 1:45.5 in the next season or so.

Rineanna

Hard luck to both men in the 50Km walk; Griffin was going great guns and all.


Anyone see the women's 4x100m relay?? Veronica Campbell was awesome in the anchor leg; she was unlucky not to catch Edwards. Brilliant result for Belgium.

Common Sense

It must be a Jamaican thing - but Powell's finish in the 4 x 100 was also awesome. He did what Maurice Greene couldn't do in Athens which was to run down Lewis Francis on the last leg. In fact I think he was much further back from MLF today than Greene was.

padolicious

Common Sense wrote:

It must be a Jamaican thing - but Powell's finish in the 4 x 100 was also awesome. He did what Maurice Greene couldn't do in Athens which was to run down Lewis Francis on the last leg. In fact I think he was much further back from MLF today than Greene was.

powell really is sumthin else!!
he wud have 1 if there was another 10m!!!

Lirange

It still doesn't make up for his lacklustre 100m. He performs his best when the pressure is off. He's no longer the favourite for next year and that might be good for him.

Did you see the chaotic start of the women's walk the other day? What a circus!

Rineanna

Lirange wrote:

Did you see the chaotic start of the women's walk the other day? What a circus!

LOL....ya, they made a bee-line for the exit. It's been going pretty smoothly for the most part bar a few mishaps, namely the men's 100m decathlon heats.

louthandproud

padolicious wrote:

powell really is sumthin else!!
he wud have 1 if there was another 10m!!!

You mean 'would have won'? This isn't a teen text line...

Rineanna

Good run by Sanders to nab the bronze; Lee McConnell ran some split aswell.

louthandproud wrote:

You mean 'would have won'? This isn't a teen text line...

Nor is it a place to devote a whole post to pick at people's spelling. I think everyone managed to understand what he/she meant. At least he/she managed to contribute to the topic, regardless of their spelling.

irish_bob

ive been watching some of the world athletics championships from osaka this past week and in awe of the achievements of the many participants
as in almost every championship , ireland wins nothing , there is no denying in how truly awfull we are when it comes to theese sports
i think between all olympics and world championships weve not won a dozen medals and that is since 1896
having thought about this on many occasions it is clear to me what the reason for our dismal lack of success is , its the GAA
in ireland at least 50% i reckon of all those who are active in sport play GAA
the remaining 50% partake in soccer , to a slightly lesser degree rugby and the tiny remaining percetage make up other minor sports
while both hurling and gaelic football are great sports , they hoover up most of the talent in this country who would undoubtabley be good at soccer , gaa and track and field
it is one of the few drawbacks of a domestic sport being so dominant in a country and is likeley to be the way it is for many years to come

tampopo

irish_bob wrote:

ive been watching some of the world athletics championships from osaka this past week and in awe of the achievements of the many participants
as in almost every championship , ireland wins nothing , there is no denying in how truly awfull we are when it comes to theese sports
i think between all olympics and world championships weve not won a dozen medals and that is since

I disagree with you about the not won a dozen bit. Looking at reeling in the years for 1984 during John Treacy's run in for the marathon Jimmy Magee reels (there's that word again)off a list of Olympic medal winners. Then there's the two boxers in '92, Hugh Russell and the yachtsmen in '80, Sonia O'Sullivan in '00, Michelle Smith (glosses over aftermath), And World champions, well, Eamonn Coughlan, Marcus O'Sullivan, Ray Flynn, Catherine McKiernan, John Treacy (Twice), Sonia again in the CCountry.

I agree with the second half of your post (within reason) but I think you gloss over lots of achiements of Irish athletes.

Granted, it is a minority sport, in a small population country.

What I'd like to know and this is a question to the other posters in this thread, whatever happened to the 'next best thing' in Irish highjumping? He was to beat all before him in Athens or Sydney, was it? I think he was from Kilkenny, trained by a woman in Belfast. Tatooed and pierced to within an inch of his life, but didn't get out of the qualifying group in Athens, and not in this team...

Rineanna

Adrian O' Dwyer. Ya I asked in another forum about him, but didn't get a definate answer. Apparently, he was having technical problems (which could have been fixed, I'd imagine). He also threatened to compete for Germany instead of Ireland due to the then poor support structures. Real pity, though. It's not very often we have a 2.30m jumper.

louthandproud

Rineanna wrote:

Good run by Sanders to nab the bronze; Lee McConnell ran some split aswell.

Nor is it a place to devote a whole post to pick at people's spelling. I think everyone managed to understand what he/she meant. At least he/she managed to contribute to the topic, regardless of their spelling.

Not spelling per-say just text speak, it's just annoying to look at. I did understand also but that isn't the point.

Anyway on to Athletics, 12 or more world championships and/or Olympic golds is an abysmal return for Ireland in the last 100 years, small country, minority sport or not. Mostly minority because of the abysmal facilities here, and that remains the case. It is interesting to fly over any small town in the US and see how many quality 400 Meter tracks they have. How many are there of such facilities in an average Irish town? I'd guess at about 0.01 per town.

My local AC for kids has to use a bus station car-park when they haven't got access to the local schools field.

Disgraceful.

Common Sense

I must say, I disagree with Irish Bob's assessment of the Irish participation in Osaka as 'awful'. Granted there were no medals but most of these athletes are works in progress and, in my view, huge progress was made in Osaka. People like O'Keeffe and Hession had to spend most of this year trying to achieve the qualification target for these championships and, arguably, had to peak too early in the season to achieve this. Most of these athletes have now achieved the "A" standards for Beijing and will be able to concentrate next year on peaking for the olympics. They will also have learned a lot in Osake to add to the store of experience they are now building. As for gold medals we need very special persons to come along and this only happens every so often. Undoubtedly in the future we'll produce more Delaneys, Coghlans, O'Sullivans etc. But with our population they are going to be few and far between. I take your point about the effect of the GAA but don't the Americans have football and basketball, the British football, the Australians have their football etc. I would imagine all of these countries are making the same arguments that you are.

tampopo

Yeah, was going to add a couple of more points.
well, it's true that Athletics (or Track) is a minority sport, but for many years Irish athletes have been amateurs competing against quasi pros. I am thinking back to Delaney with his hoovers on the back of his bike. The folks in the US are/were already more fully resourced, well before the professionalism of IAAF. tbh, I thought about it the other day and laughed till I heard an annoucer at the stadium, I thought it was Int'l Amateur Athletic Fed, but it's Associations....

The other point is, well, for years and years and years, till quite recently I always thought of the yanks as merely a funnily accented people that drove on the wrong side of the road, but more or less the same as us.

They are not, they are very culturally different to us. They are raised to be winners, winners, winners. Nothing else, they must win. They have such a positive outlook it's frightening. Winning is what counts and nothing else.

I get a bit fed up with the bbc commentators referring to Jo Pavey as brave and all that hog wash.No medal for bravery. And are not the three people ahead of her in the 10k race not brave then? Maybe they're not brave but they've got a medal.

And did you hear them b!tching about the temperature of the ladies marathon. Sweet god, ne'er a word of it being intolerable when darling goddess Paula Radcliffe was leading in Athens.

I think I was the only one who figured she wouldn't win that marathon, such was the hype. She's a cold weather runner ffs.

I dunno, I DO like the bbc coverage and their commentators, but gosh they go overboard. We don't.
Do we!!!

Did we hype Derval O'Rourke. Even Kallur the best and only European in the Final looked like a fish out of water, PB to get 4th, and she's the queen of Europe!!! Don't get me wrong, I think DO'R is cool and talented and gritty and determined. I hope she continues her good form.

2m30 for Adrian O'Dwyer, hmmm, that's good. I am more au fait with the High jump after these champ's!!! I think, is it not, a chicken and egg story. Get good without support....so that you qualify as an elite athlete... to get support. How to get a job without experience, yet no job without experience..

Lirange

tampopo wrote:

Even Kallur the best and only European in the Final looked like a fish out of water, PB to get 4th, and she's the queen of Europe!!! Don't get me wrong, I think DO'R is cool and talented and gritty and determined. I hope she continues her good form.

I think we know the reason Kallur gets the attention don't we? I like the way she always does her patented face plant at the finish. Poor Susanna. In fairness, she was only .01 from a medal and only .05 from the gold. That was a tight result.

I admit I laughed at the collision in the men's 4x4. Though I started to feel guilty for my sadism later. Allyson Felix split 48.2 in the 4x4. She won't be able to run for the double in Beijing if the schedulers don't cooperate though. I loved Vlasic's little dance floor routine. It could have been worse. She could have done the robot!

It's been a long time since we've had this depth in athletics in terms of competitors getting to finals and semis. What is missing is that breakthrough athlete. Croatia doesn't have the depth Ireland does but they do have a gold medallist. Overall, I'm content with our performance but not elated. The good news is most of the athletes were not overawed by the occasion and seemed to bring out their best ... whatever that was on the day (Cragg and a few others aside).

Dodge

Lads countries like Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Holland etc are all far bigger than Ireland and they all struggle to get any medals in Track & Field at the world level. Its just a fact that we have go to accept. For anybody to be considered in the top 10 in the world at anything is a major major achievement.

irish_bob

lets slay a few myths about why ireland cant be expected to win medals at the world championships or olympics oh and to the person who claimed that catherina mc kiernan and marcus o sullivan won , they did not , catherina mc kiernan won the cross country ,im talkin about the world championships and the olympics , marcus o sullivan may have won some indoor thingy but thats all
people say that we have a small population , so does cuba , so does jamaica , the bahammass has less than a million people
all those countries are dirt poor in comparrision to ireland and those countries usually win close to a dozen medals at the olympics
someone mentioned that the netherlands and switzerland win nothing either
the netherlands usually wins at least a dozen medals at the olympics , especially in swimming and hockey , switzerland , well they have the greatest male tennis player of all time , new zealand has exactly the same size population as ireland and while they have perfromed poorly at recent games
they have about 50 medals in all olympics comared to less than a dozen for us

if our athletes progress to the finals of an event , we think its a great achievement , its all about personal bests and not much more
someone mentioned that in the uk they have soccer and it takes from there other sports , soccer is a global game so its a bogus comparison to our problem with gaa taking from all other sports

as i said earlier , over 50% of sports people in this country play gaa
outside the pale this is even higher where there is almost no other sport to play , yes nearly every parish in ireland has a soccer team but in counties like cavan or monaghan , they dont have even 1 rugby club

the gaa is all powerfull and it is where the vast majority of talented sports people migrate

that said we are not a poor country and the fact that the bahammas a 3rd world country almost with a population of less than a million can win almost 10 times as many as us is an absolute disgrace , we are a joke at both the olympics and world championships and i like many others wonder where all the funding goes and dont tell me the funding is too small because you can bet your botttom dollar its way higher than the funding that athlettes in ethiopia get and they win several medals also

Rineanna

tampopo wrote:

2m30 for Adrian O'Dwyer, hmmm, that's good.

I think it was at the Algiers grand prix in 2004.

Lirange wrote:

I admit I laughed at the collision in the men's 4x4. Though I started to feel guilty for my sadism later

I'd say the Pole had to be stretchered off the track after the clatter he got from the German. I would love to know what the German said to him as he got up off the ground; he looked like he was spitting venom anyway!

Lirange wrote:

I loved Vlasic's little dance floor routine. It could have been worse. She could have done the robot!

That's just put a very strange image into my mind!

thirtyfoot

irish_bob wrote:

and i like many others wonder where all the funding goes and dont tell me the funding is too small because you can bet your botttom dollar its way higher than the funding that athlettes in ethiopia get and they win several medals also

The old wasting our taxmoney line, classic. Well for a start 30% of the sports capital budget goes to horse racing. Thats a joke as its not even a sport. The money the average athlete gets is probably less than they might get if they were on the dole. I've had this argument so many times and I've come to the conclusion that if someone believes what you believe we can't change your mind. Anyone in an olympic sport will know what it means to qualify for a games, it means you are an elite athlete.

Most olympic athletes (rowers, swimmers, cyclist, runners) are a different breed to GAA players. To partake and succeed at the highest level in these sports you need to love the sport and be a bit of a masochist. Its usually a lonely existance and very individualistic. I would reckon if you garnered opinion of all our olympic athletes across all sports and said what would you prefer - be an olympic athlete or be an all-ireland winner in Croke Park, the majority would be to be an olympic athlete. My point is yes we lose some talent to GAA but not as much as you might think as the ones who are qualifying for olympics have a different mindset (different not better) to GAA players in that its individual and about themselves getting most out of themselves on the greatest stage possible, ie, the olympics or world or euros.

As a side point I'm a GAA fan and the only obvious athlete playing GAA who I reckon could have succeeded on a world stage and qualified for an olympics is Sean Og O' Hailpin. There would be others of course but he is the only standout.

Dodge

irish_bob wrote:

someone mentioned that the netherlands and switzerland win nothing either

I was talking specifically about track & field

tampopo

Hiya irish bob, I'm sorry I cannot continue any exchanges of ideas with you, sorry.

Anybody else who wants to discuss the World Championships, I'd be delighted to.

thirtyfoot

What were people's highlights from the worlds?

Obviously Heffernan and O' Keeffe were great while Cuddihy's record and Hession progress through the 200 were exciting to see.

Felix's leg in the 4x4 was unreal (48.2) as I thought she went out too hard to 200 until we say a closeup on the finish straight and she was so comfortable. Also Saladino in the LJ and Sebrle's throw in the Javelin when the pressure was on. Kenya's re-emergence was great too. Powell and Alan Webb were the big disappointments.

Pherekydes

Tingle wrote:

What were people's highlights from the worlds?

Too many to mention them all, but Bekele's epic 10k win and Pitkamaki finally breaking his major duck were two that stood out for me, but I really got a lot of pleasure out of nearly all the events.

quozl

Bekele's 10k win. That was the most dramatic race in the championship I feel.

He looked like the heat had gotten to him, which after the worlds cross country wouldn't have been a total shock and looked in danger of being dropped. Then in the final 300 metres he managed to pass and then leave Sihine what looked like 20 or 30 metres behind him.

The guy is amazing, and all the more interesting to watch this year as he no longer looks completely untouchable.

Ohurugou (sp?) winning the 400 metre was pretty special too. Good on her.

irish_bob

your people can rejoice in out athletes finishing 6th or 11th in the semi finals or whatever
my eyes are wide open , we suck at both the olympics and the world championships , there are no 2 ways about it
oh and somone mentioned that 30% of goverment funding towards sport is spent on horse racing
that may be true but no matter how little our athletes recieve , i refuse to believe its less than athleres from cuba , jamaica , ethiopia or kenya

as roy keanne once said , lets stop settling for 2nd best or in our athletics participants case , lets stop settling for 22nd

Pherekydes

irish_bob wrote:

as roy keanne once said , lets stop settling for 2nd best or in our athletics participants case , lets stop settling for 22nd

Good one to quote, as he quit on the biggest stage of all.

Dodge

irish_bob wrote:

i refuse to believe its less than athleres from cuba , jamaica

LOL.

Simply denying the truth doesn't make it any less true.

thirtyfoot

irish_bob wrote:

your people can rejoice in out athletes finishing 6th or 11th in the semi finals or whatever
my eyes are wide open , we suck at both the olympics and the world championships , there are no 2 ways about it

Don't know why I'm bothering but I think you need to read more of Ian O' Riordan than Jerome O' Reilly if you want to get an idea of elite sport in Ireland. There is more than just "ball sports and pony races" (think it was Noel Berkely who said that years ago)

You are talking absolute sh*te, you obviously have no understanding of sport at the highest level or what is involved. Please ignore this wind up merchant and lets get back to talking about the worlds.

Common Sense

Apart from the Irish performances there were many highlights for me but the one that actually got me out of my couch and on my feet was Sebrle's 71m javelin throw. I literally couldn't believe it. My son-in-law was watching it with me and when I looked over at him, he was also on his feet.

ZiggyStardust

I think someone mentioned it aswell, but my highlight would have to be the long jump. I was sure Howe had it when outjumping Saladino by 1cm in the last round, but then with the very last jump of the contest Saladino flew down the track to jump to gold.
It reminded me, but was not as exciting as 1991.
I'd be more into the track myself, but sometimes these field events can be gripping.