A thread of radical solutions for the GB relay team on how to get the bloody baton round

[Tooting Gull]

Someone must have a genius idea. It's becoming an international joke.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Pass it carefully to the next runner?

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Someone must have a genius idea. It's becoming an international joke.

Train and practice properly?

 

[Stat Brother]

Velcro hands.

 

[Tooting Gull]

Train and practice properly?

You'd have thought that would have figured in the list of 'non-radical' solutions. Apparently not.

 

[Tooting Gull]

They are reported, prior to this latest balls-up, to have had 40 practice sessions. 40! What were they doing in them? Egg and spoon?

 

[hans kraay fan club]

You'd have thought that would have figured in the list of 'non-radical' solutions. Apparently not.

They don't. Seriously. Obviously the athletes individually all train full time, and I'm sure they all work very hard.

However they all train with their own coaches, spread all across the country at different tracks. Only once the team for a championships has been selected, do the relay squad get together for a few days at a time, over a few weeks, to practice together.

Can you even BEGIN to imagine what Dave Brailsford would think of that?

 

[Tooting Gull]

Right now I'd take the shame of four starry-eyed athletes doped up to the eyeballs to get three changes inside the boxes without dropping the baton.

 

[JCL - the new kid in town]

What is the point of the baton really? They don't use one in swimming relays so why don't they use a hand touch as a transfer as with cameras everywhere no one can cheat.

 

[Stat Brother]

They don't. Seriously. Obviously the athletes individually all train full time, and I'm sure they all work very hard.

However they all train with their own coaches, spread all across the country at different tracks. Only once the team for a championships has been selected, do the relay squad get together for a few days at a time, over a few weeks, to practice together.

Can you even BEGIN to imagine what Dave Brailsford would think of that?

Blimey Hans you don't want much for your £100+m investment, Training in the same place, as a team, monitored, and tested.

Your need to stick another nought on the end to cover that kind of thinking.

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

A thread of radical solutions for the GB relay team on how to get the bloody ba

What is the point of the baton really? They don't use one in swimming relays so why don't they use a hand touch as a transfer as with cameras everywhere no one can cheat.

Because the event is a relay with batons. It's not meant to be easy, it's meant to be a skill that teams perfect.

 

[Brighton Mod]

They don't. Seriously. Obviously the athletes individually all train full time, and I'm sure they all work very hard.

However they all train with their own coaches, spread all across the country at different tracks. Only once the team for a championships has been selected, do the relay squad get together for a few days at a time, over a few weeks, to practice together.

Can you even BEGIN to imagine what Dave Brailsford would think of that?

There's no baton in cycling and only six serious countries that compete on the track. Brailsfords budget exceeds that of France by 50 times, Brailsford actually should be winning more than he does, I also hear there may well be a challenge coming from another home based team on the road. Brailsford needs to win a classic to prove his worth.

 

[Stat Brother]

Brailsford needs to win a classic to prove his worth.

hahahahahaha, hahahahaha, haha, hahahahahahahaha, ha.

You need to go back to bed and get up when your head has cleared.


I spent yesterday looking for some specific bile that was generated after our third loss to Derby.
Believe me there was a lot of bile to go through, and yet nothing written here 8 days ago can hold a candle to that statement.

Chapeau.

 

[portlock seagull]

Put a costa coffee shop at each handover station. The athletes could then run in, sit down at the correct table to ensure they hand over properly. This has the added advantage of the prior runner being able to sit back with a drink and relax watching the remainder of the race.

 

[Stat Brother]

Put a costa coffee shop at each handover station. The athletes could then run in, sit down at the correct table to ensure they hand over properly. This has the added advantage of the prior runner being able to sit back with a drink and relax watching the remainder of the race.

If you make that Starbucks they could have Team GB written on their cup, so they could easily recognise each other.

 

[Mo Gosfield]

It was pathetic to watch. The OTT celebrating stuck in my craw. They knew they had transgressed but carried on regardless. No sign of contrition. Phil Jones ( so desperate to be pc all the time, its cringeworthy ) was equally to blame, not discussing the poor handover enough. If they thought they were going to get away with something as blatant as that, then they are, quite frankly, stupid. And then, to cap it all, the head of UK Athletics joins the studio panel and avoids the issue, trotting out a banal series of soundbites, using the word ' positive ' every five seconds, rejoicing in the fact that we had reached our minimum target of six medals. Whoopee. ( Where do they get these people from? He sounds like a pre-programmed robot. High on motivational speak and not having the foggiest idea how he is going to improve UK Athletics )
FFS, the mens relay was the culmination of another pretty poor performance by our athletes, rescued as always by the outstanding Mo and the indomitable Christine O but with a complete lack of depth anywhere.

 

[strings]

Part of the issue is the not practicing of relays.

The Americans athletes grow up doing relays for their respective College teams - they know the event inside out. You cannot get to the top in US sprinting without running more than a few relays. They know how to do a changeover and, crucially, you could take one person out of the team and replace them with almost any other American athlete and the changeovers would still be perfect.

I have been to the British athletics championships at the Alexander Stadium for the last two years and I believe the addition of a 4*100 relay (and 4*400 relay) would help us. Whilst we don't have a College sports system like the US, if relays we added as an inter-club event at the GB championships the younger sprinters would get experience of running relays for their clubs and, as a result, their technique would (should) be much better.

Of course that would never help the 'one-offs' like Adam Gemili, who didn't start in athletics until late in his teens.

The only other solution I could think of is magnetic rings on each relay sprinter's baton holding hand. This, however, wouldn't work for Dwayne Chambers, who always feels the need to switch the baton from his left to his right hand (slowing momentum, and risking a drop), but he is hardly going to change at his age.

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

It was pathetic to watch. The OTT celebrating stuck in my craw. They knew they had transgressed but carried on regardless. No sign of contrition. Phil Jones ( so desperate to be pc all the time, its cringeworthy ) was equally to blame, not discussing the poor handover enough. If they thought they were going to get away with something as blatant as that, then they are, quite frankly, stupid. And then, to cap it all, the head of UK Athletics joins the studio panel and avoids the issue, trotting out a banal series of soundbites, using the word ' positive ' every five seconds, rejoicing in the fact that we had reached our minimum target of six medals. Whoopee. ( Where do they get these people from? He sounds like a pre-programmed robot. High on motivational speak and not having the foggiest idea how he is going to improve UK Athletics )
FFS, the mens relay was the culmination of another pretty poor performance by our athletes, rescued as always by the outstanding Mo and the indomitable Christine O but with a complete lack of depth anywhere.

In historical terms then this is a pretty good result. One less than in 2011, the same as 2009 and more than in 2001 - 2007. Also looks like we have some pretty good athletes coming through in the likes of Johnson-Thompson and Gemili

 

[Mo Gosfield]

In historical terms then this is a pretty good result. One less than in 2011, the same as 2009 and more than in 2001 - 2007. Also looks like we have some pretty good athletes coming through in the likes of Johnson-Thompson and Gemili

So no improvement since 2009.

 

[Badger]

Part of the issue is the not practicing of relays.

The Americans athletes grow up doing relays for their respective College teams - they know the event inside out. You cannot get to the top in US sprinting without running more than a few relays. They know how to do a changeover and, crucially, you could take one person out of the team and replace them with almost any other American athlete and the changeovers would still be perfect.

I have been to the British athletics championships at the Alexander Stadium for the last two years and I believe the addition of a 4*100 relay (and 4*400 relay) would help us. Whilst we don't have a College sports system like the US, if relays we added as an inter-club event at the GB championships the younger sprinters would get experience of running relays for their clubs and, as a result, their technique would (should) be much better.

Of course that would never help the 'one-offs' like Adam Gemili, who didn't start in athletics until late in his teens.

The only other solution I could think of is magnetic rings on each relay sprinter's baton holding hand. This, however, wouldn't work for Dwayne Chambers, who always feels the need to switch the baton from his left to his right hand (slowing momentum, and risking a drop), but he is hardly going to change at his age.

Is this the same US team that stepped outside their lane yesterday yet escaped disqualification?