AIT Grand Prix 2018- IAAF World Athlete Of The Year Mutaz Essa Barshim To Headline

El Caballo

Date set for 21st of February

http://www.aitsport.ie/ait-grand-prix/

Early days yet and there wil be plenty of more additions to come but Barshim is worth the admisson price on his own imo:D. Last time he competed here in 2015, he stole the show jumping the second highest ever inddors and attempted to take down Javier Sotomayor's 26 year old indoor World record. He's a character as well.

Thomas Barr will also be running the 400 to open up his season and I'm sure there will be more World class athletes alongside the best of the Irish announced over the next few weeks.

Chivito550

El Caballo wrote: »

Date set for 21st of February

http://www.aitsport.ie/ait-grand-prix/

Early days yet and there wil be plenty of more additions to come but Barshim is worth the admisson price on his own imo:D. Last time he competed here in 2015, he stole the show jumping the second highest ever inddors and attempted to take down Javier Sotomayor's 26 year old indoor World record. He's a character as well.

Thomas Barr will also be running the 400 to open up his season and I'm sure there will be more World class athletes alongside the best of the Irish announced over the next few weeks.

Interesting re Barr. He usually only ever runs intervarsities indoors. I wonder is he considering a more extended indoor season this year, perhaps running the Nationals.

fishy21

Barshim just jumped 2.38 WL in the Asian indoors. Hopefully he improves in AIT.

There hasnt been much updates on the athletes competing this year.

Does anyone know who else is confirmed other than Barshim, Barr, Hendricks and Barber?

Thanks

Chivito550

fishy21 wrote: »

Barshim just jumped 2.38 WL in the Asian indoors. Hopefully he improves in AIT.

There hasnt been much updates on the athletes competing this year.

Does anyone know who else is confirmed other than Barshim, Barr, Hendricks and Barber?

Thanks

Melissa Bishop who has competed the last 2 years won’t be there this time. She’s pregnant.

fishy21

Chivito550 wrote: »

Melissa Bishop who has competed the last 2 years won’t be there this time. She’s pregnant.

Yes i seen that this morning alright. Last year there were good updates this close as to who was competing.

would love to see a good 60m mens and womens LJ lineup.

fishy21

Trayvon Bromwell was in Carlow the other day, if only he stayed around for the 60m.

fishy21

Any further info in this? There was a picture of the names put up on AITs twitter and I didn’t see Barshims name.
I know Kendrick’s is here alright.

fishy21

Barshim has pulled out again.

I know the organisers can't do anything about it but the communication could of been better.

He was suppose to fly into Ireland at the weekend so they obviously knew he wasn't coming since then and they only annonce it 24 hours before the event so people would still buy tickets.

He was the only reason i was going. I hate irish events, always a dissapointment.

average_runner

fishy21 wrote: »

Barshim has pulled out again.

I know the organisers can't do anything about it but the communication could of been better.

He was suppose to fly into Ireland at the weekend so they obviously knew he wasn't coming since then and they only annonce it 24 hours before the event so people would still buy tickets.

He was the only reason i was going. I hate irish events, always a dissapointment.

It was brilliant last year with a high quality field. Barshim is good but is not the end all
Maybe the organisers only found out he didn't fly in till yesterday.

Most of the tickets would of been sold last Jan anyhow, very few are available yesterday and today.

Sunny Dayz

Looking forward to attending tonight. Really enjoyed it last year.

EC1000

TG4 showing all events now. 1.5 hours of coverage.

Pherekydes

Longest trackside interview ever!

pconn062

Pherekydes wrote: »

Longest trackside interview ever!

Desperate stuff, the interviewer is clueless. Makes for painful watching.

hurdles1

Very disappointing turnout of Irish athletes tonight . English showed he is coming back , Great effort by John travers and barr showed he's fit and healthy for the outdoor season.
I know the nationals were on the weekend but I feel this was a Good opportunity for some of our current junior stars to compete at this level and get used to this level of competition and mix in this environment for their progression going forward. Perhaps a women's 200m race would have helped. Another championship is nearly upon us and yet again very small numbers qualified. Not even much effort to get some relays going. The reality is at the top level only Tom barr can hold his own and perhaps Phil Healy who has made a big breakthrough this indoor season.
The rest are down in the lower league's hopefully some of these talented juniors can make the step up in the coming years .
Although silly statements like the "New Sonia " New derval" is not helping these young athletes.

joey1111

Cringeworthy watching those interviews, thanking foreign athletes in irish and dragging the ar#e out of the interviews while talking about rubbish. Couldn't understand half the english she was saying with her veneers getting in the way.

Chivito550

hurdles1 wrote: »

Very disappointing turnout of Irish athletes tonight . English showed he is coming back , Great effort by John travers and barr showed he's fit and healthy for the outdoor season.
I know the nationals were on the weekend but I feel this was a Good opportunity for some of our current junior stars to compete at this level and get used to this level of competition and mix in this environment for their progression going forward. Perhaps a women's 200m race would have helped. Another championship is nearly upon us and yet again very small numbers qualified. Not even much effort to get some relays going. The reality is at the top level only Tom barr can hold his own and perhaps Phil Healy who has made a big breakthrough this indoor season.
The rest are down in the lower league's hopefully some of these talented juniors can make the step up in the coming years .
Although silly statements like the "New Sonia " New derval" is not helping these young athletes.

This meet is always before Nationals, when qualification window is still open for Euro/World Indoors. Why did they change it? Times from this meet this year wouldn’t count for qualification as deadline has passed, so I suspect some wouldn’t have bothered as a result.

fishy21

Well it was an interesting night.

All the good seats were reserved for sponsors. But i cant complain it made for a good night of athletics.

The mens mile, 800 and 400 were good.
Pole Vault wasnt great. The mens high jump was very poor.
The womens 1500 had a good finish.

Again the timing equipment was poor and showed a 6.43 for Shields for the 60m, as if he could run that. I think it would of been a jamican record and put him in the top 5 all time.

I can confirm that they knew Barshim wasnt coming since the weekend at least. He was due to be collected at the airport Saturday and they obviously knew before that.
He wasnt even printed on the original program which was old.

Other than Kendricks (who isnt on form) and Gregson there was no one else world class and exciting.

Some names missing that were on the program that would of been good are Harry Aikens, Sharika Nelvis, Ivet Lalova-Collio, Sean Safo-Antwi, Elliot Giles and some others.