Seven medals may not be enough to convince Charles van Commenee's critics if they all happen to be silver and bronze ? but there is hope on the horizon at the World Championships
The British athletes all agree on at least one subject ? there is a great team spirit at these World Championships. As Phillips Idowu put it earlier this week: "Four days, three medals, two DQs, one team standing together." But there is one conspicuous thing missing so far: a gold medal.
At the start of the championships Charles van Commenee made a point of asking the British press and public to wait until the final race was run before passing judgment. "Then you can hold me accountable for the seven medals," said Van Commenee, referring to the target he has set for the squad.
But if he needed an insight into how impatient the British can be he would have got it just two days into the championships, when one broadsheet had already announced that his team were "flops" after Dwain Chambers and Christine Ohuruogu were disqualified. And Van Commenee will also know that, rightly or wrongly, seven medals may not be enough to convince his critics if they all happen to be silver and bronze.
Mo Farah and Jess Ennis, two of Britain's best gold medal prospects, both finished with silver medals. And at the point when Ennis crossed the finishing line second, if Van Commenee listened carefully he could have hear the sound of knives being sharpened. But the rush to judge may yet look a little foolish. There are still three British gold medal contenders left to compete, and Van Commenee will be hoping at least one of them can deliver.
Dai Greene, the European and Commonwealth 400m hurdles champion, runs in the final of that event on Thursday. He looked in superb form in the semi-finals, cantering through in a time of 48.62sec. "When I came off the bend I didn't see that they were anywhere near me," explained Greene after his semi, "so I took my foot of the gas really. I know in the final I won't have that luxury." He is, as he pointed out, just one of a group of athletes capable of winning the final.
So it would be a stretch to say Greene will start as favourite, the Puerto Rican Javier Coulson was faster than him, and the USA's Bershawn Jackson is also in good form. But Greene looks like a man in racing trim. "I'm firing on all cylinders," said Greene. "I just feel like I can win from anywhere in all my races at the minute." There may be faster men in the field, but most finals in these World Championships have been decided by tactics rather than times, and as he proved with his double last year, Greene knows how to win championship races.
Van Commenee will be relieved that Farah has now confirmed that he will be on the startline for the qualifying round of the 5,000m on Thursday morning. After the stress of a 10km final that was more draining than he had anticipated it would be, Farah and his coach Alberto Salazar were in two minds about whether he would double up. But they have decided that he has recovered enough to run.
Just like in the 10,000m, Farah has the fastest time in the world this year at the distance. The defending champion Kenenisa Bekele has pulled out, but Farah will still be wary about Bernard Lagat, the 36-year-old veteran from the USA who won in Osaka in 2007. Lagat singled Farah out as the man to beat, but has promised to "run smart and use my tactics", to try and do it. And then on Friday Idowu himself starts his own campaign to try and do what Ennis could not, and become the first Briton to defend a world title.
Away from the ranks of the few who are capable of making the top step of the podium it will be intriguing to see whether either Chris Tomlinson or Greg Rutherford, ranked fifth and ninth in the world this year, can finally produce their best in the long jump when it really counts on Friday. And then there are the two new recruits, the 100m hurdler Tiffany Porter, ranked fifth in the world, and Yamile Aldama, who qualified in fifth for the triple jump final. A few shrewd judges have also slipped a little each-way bet on Hannah England in the 1,500m.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/aug/31/race-for-gold-world-championships
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