At London 2012, Mo Farah endeared himself to the world, exuding class, personality and a great sense of likeability as he stormed to the 5,000 and 10,000 metre double. Twelve months on Britain’s greatest ever distance runner has replicated his momentous feat, holding off the challenge of Ethiopia and Kenya’s best athletes, to seal his place in the history books. Meanwhile Christine Ohuruogu once more reiterated why she is one of Britain’s most successful ever athletes, as she added another World Championship gold to her collection of medals in the 400m.
On the surface three gold medals, one more than Team GB achieved in the previous World Championships in Daegu, and a further three bronze medals should constitute an ultimately successful week of competition. However, if you remove the star performances of our leading individuals, then a more worrying picture is presented, of a team devoid of talent in certain areas, as the heavy investment in British athletics fails to fully come to fruition. Perhaps I’m just being greedy after the brilliant success of London 2012, expecting too much for us to be competitive in all of the events, one of those pessimists who can never be pleased; or perhaps there is a realism that there are cracks that have been covered by the likes of Farah and Ohuruogu.
Remove such superb individual performances, and instead there is a sense of a nation failing to reach its full potential, and displaying a lack of competitiveness in a series of events. Take the throwing events for example, and in particularly the javelin, an event which we have an excellent pedigree in with former champions such as Steve Backley and Fatima Whitbread. Despite our previous successes, we were unable to even field a single competitor, man or woman, in the javelin, and in fact only had a grand total of two throwers in any events, Sophie Hitchon in the hammer and Brett Morse in the discus. Now I’m not expecting us to win medals, or even constantly make finals in these events, but the fact that we can’t even put out a representative of our great nation in the majority of these is worrying. And in truth, the situation was not much better in the jumping events, with the lack of strength of depth vividly highlighted, as once more a number of events were held without any British interest. In total British athletes qualified for two field finals, two out of 16, a figure which is not really acceptable.
On the track we fared better, with Tiffany Porter and the relay teams adding to our medal haul, whilst there were encouraging performances from Hannah England, Andrew Osagie and most of all Adam Gemili. With two personal bests in the 200m, and becoming only the second ever Brit to dip under 20 seconds, Gemili looks like a real prospect, and one has to wonder why the 19 year old wasn’t selected for the 100m. Granted James Dasaolu made the final, and has demonstrated the ability to run sub-ten second times, but there are doubts about his consistency, whilst his attitude towards the relay does not appear to augur well for the future. Currently Dasaolu seemingly has the ability to run the quickest times, but in the future Gemili looks like the shining prospect. We must not put too much pressure on the youngster though, as other British sprinters, such as Mark Lewis-Francis and Craig Pickering have promised but failed to deliver on the big stage.
Other areas though are more concerning, with only Farah featuring in the long distance races, and a lack of strength in depth in other events. Former stars such as Dai Greene, Jessica Ennis and Greg Rutherford have been hampered by injury or loss of form, but all in all we seem to have largely failed to build on the legacy of London. As I say perhaps I simply expect too much, perhaps I pin my hopes too high, but inside there is something telling me that not everything is as smooth as it seems on the surface. But for now we should rejoice in the success of certain individuals, bask in their success, and hold our heads high.