Going For Gold

No, not the classic pan-Europe general knowledge quiz show that ran on the BBC for many a year, but the GB (and NI) athletics team at the European Championships that began today in Barcelona.

In fact we've already had a great start to the championships with a 1-2 in the 10,000m.  Mo Farah claimed the gold, four years after collecting a silver in the 5,000m at a rain-soaked championships in Gothenburg, and Chris Thompson (I can see his Wikipedia page expanding a bit over the next few weeks!) took second place and with it the silver.

Sarah is a total athletics geek and spends many an hour watching YouTube videos while looking up historical reults on Wikepedia so I've had to set the V+ box to record almost six hours off BBC coverage each day this week.  She's catching up on this mornings action (Sarah, it's only bloody qualifying heats!!) while I write this and won't appreciate my Sarah is a geek chat!  Ahhh well.

Team GB should have a decent chance in a number of events.  For the men, Phillips Idowu should claim gold in the triple jump and naughty drugs cheat Dwain Chambers should be first over the line in the 100m.  Hopefully Martyn Rooney won't disappoint in the 400m and Dai Greene has a decent chance in the 400m hurdles.

The scrummy Jessica Ennis is a shoe-in for Heptathlon gold and other women with a decent chance of gold are Jenny Meadows in the 800m and Lisa Dobriskey in the 1500m.

If all those come in Charles Van Commenee will be in line for a fat bonus!

The Olympic Stadium has had a lick of paint since I saw it at the end of January.  The track has been relayed and is now blue and the grass on the field looks in a much better state.

This is how it looked six months ago:



And this is how it looks now:

Quite a difference!!

Away from the action in Barcelona, some wise old owl has decided to hold the championships every two years going forward.  This means that the next championships will finish just 26 days before the start of the 2012 Olympics.  Seems a bit of a silly idea to me and one that will surely lead to the devaluing of future championships, especially the ones that fall in Olympic years.

In London today there was an Olympic countdown event because the games will begin two years today.  The 2012 Olympic Stadium seems destined to become a football ground which for me is a real shame.

There is a lot of hot air being spouted about the legacy of the 2012 Games.  As far as I'm concerned one of the major legacies of London 2012 should be a world class athletics stadium in the capital of England.  I don't want West Ham or Spurs to get a new ground on the cheap and I don't want London to be left with another multi-use stadium that has constant pitch problems!  Saying that, the Stade de France seems to be able to cope with football, rugby and athletics so perhaps all would not be lost if the stadium did host multiple sports.

On a more positive note, looking at the photos of the countdown event we are going to have two cracking 2012 legacies.  The aquatics centre and velodrome are going to be world class venues for many years to come.



The velodrome looks quality with a year of work still to go.