Mixed Relay - World Athletics Championships

"Incidentally, I was watching the women’s 200m heats yesterday with my 9 year old. We came to amitanou seyni (dont know this athlete or their status) as the camera panned and she said “that ones a man”."

Your daughter is more qualified than the IOC and IAAF.
This one slipped right under my radar. It is ludicrous that they are being allowed to compete at all, because testosterone is an anabolic steroid and makes most difference to sprinters. Seyni broke the Nigerian national record for 200m yesterday.

olympics.nbcsports.com/2019/09/30/aminatou-seyni-testosterone-rule/

As if the US, China etc were going to say oh ok, we'll let you have this advantage to yourselves and not look into whether we could replicate it, if it were established that Semenya and Chand could compete without reducing their testosterone.

Exactly. It would simply set up an 'arms race' with other nations seeking out people with the same conditions, and in some cases not giving them any say in whether or not they wished to be used in such a manner.

We've seen it all before with doping. We know what went on in the old Eastern block because it collapsed but we'd be fools to think the west wasn't involved as well. I'm old enough to remember the Ben Johnson debacle and subsequent Canadian enquiry where they came clean about how much doping was going on. Other western nations may have stood around whistling going 'not us guv, oh noes' but it would be naïve to think we weren't all at it.

And some of those records stand to this day to the detriment of women athletes in particular.

Indeed not. And honestly, I think some of them seem to think there aren't any intersex people in wealthier countries. As if the US, China etc were going to say oh ok, we'll let you have this advantage to yourselves and not look into whether we could replicate it, if it were established that Semenya and Chand could compete without reducing their testosterone.

Yes it's a remarkable coincidence isn't it?

It demonstrates how quick people are to virtue signal on matters they know the square root of f all about.

You could not possibly have missed the domination of East Africans in middle and long distance events if you actually watched athletics.

Did spare a thought for 2013 champion Eunice Sum though, who is one of the most impacted of all athletes by the nonsense of allowing males to compete. Funny how the woke brigade never spare a thought for her when shrieking 'racist' at others

Yes it's a remarkable coincidence isn't it? Twitter is full of people making arses of themselves by suggesting that Lynsey Sharp's weak performance here in some way impacts the argument that people with high testosterone because of their Y chromosomes shouldn't be in women's races, but it's fine to throw black women who don't have a Y chromosome under the bus. Some are more equal than others, it would seem.

Anyone watch the women's 800 metres?

Yes, great win for Nakaayi, really good race, Raven Rogers almost, almost snuck it. Did spare a thought for 2013 champion Eunice Sum though, who is one of the most impacted of all athletes by the nonsense of allowing males to compete. Funny how the woke brigade never spare a thought for her when shrieking 'racist' at others.

Also really enjoyed Chepkoech's imperious steeplechase win, putting 2017's brain fart to bed forever.

I think the issue was the placing of it - ie before the individual events which could detract from later performance and therefore affects team choices.

Incidentally, I was watching the women’s 200m heats yesterday with my 9 year old. We came to amitanou seyni (dont know this athlete or their status) as the camera panned and she said “that ones a man”. We watched this athlete storm past the rest and she declared “it’s not fair”. So my 9 year old gets it (on a day when my 12 year old was informed by an adult female teacher that feminists are more likely to have short hair and wear a suit and tie. Yes really).

Yes I did. Also the amazing high jumpers.

Johnson does have previous for minimising relay success a bit, tbf. It doesn't surprise me that he doesn't want to see another one. Since it's such a gift of a gold for the US given that their women are utterly dominant and their men win it over 50% of the time, he may well be trying to look balanced and neutral. I quite enjoyed it but would agree the Para sports should probably take priority when new events are added.

Anyone watch the women's 800 metres?

She also made the point that relays usually come at the end of the individual events, not in the middle of the programme. Emily Diamond still has her event to run tomorrow - its questionable how much the relay has taken away from her individual performance

This point hadn't occurred to me but given Christian Coleman pulled out of the 200m yesterday citing fatigue and a number of athletes have struggled with conditions including one man being helped, staggering, over the line by a fellow competitor in the 5000 heats I cannot think running this relay has done much for her chances.

Watched the final last night and to be honest was a bit meh about it. It does clearly demonstrate the canyon wide gulf between men and women, the American man passing the Polish woman on the final leg was almost cartoonishly comedic, but as an athletics fan I'm not sure what it really adds.

If they feel the need for a few extra events I'd rather see the Commonwealth Games approach of adding a wheelchair event or blind sprinting.

"I was also heartened by the fact that all the presenters - in the studio and commentating - all used the word ‘sex’. I didn’t hear the ‘g’ word used once".

I was going to mention that, Ahundred.

I wondered if I was just hyper attuned to it.

But maybe Gabby, Paula, Steve Cram and Andrew Cotter have had a conversation beforehand. Can't see any of them falling for the gender bollocks.

Denise Lewis was making exactly the same points tonight as MJ did about the mixed relays. She also made the point that relays usually come at the end of the individual events, not in the middle of the programme. Emily Diamond still has her event to run tomorrow - its questionable how much the relay has taken away from her individual performance

I watched and I didn’t think MJ was particularly being weird about it. It was scheduled before some of the single sex events, like the women’s 200m. So I think his and Denise’s points were about that, and how teams couldn’t enter their best athletes if they had single sex events the next day because it would unnecessarily tire them out. They should have had it at the end of the champs instead.

I thought it was great for highlighting the performance differences between make and female athletes. I was also heartened by the fact that all the presenters - in the studio and commentating - all used the word ‘sex’. I didn’t hear the ‘g’ word used once.

I thought it was interesting. I also like MJ. He doesn't mind making an argument that is unpopular - I admire him for it.

Allyson Felix with her 12th gold in World Championships.

What an athlete she is.

She and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce showing how amazing women's bodies can be. Both have become mothers in the last couple of years.

yy jamin. That overtaking was like a cartoon race .
Interesting tactics though. The man running against all the women in leg 2(?) and storming off ahead was fascinating to watch.

Watched this with DH tonight. I don't think there's any greater demonstration of the difference between women and men at the top of their game. Look at this tweeted video!

Michael Johnson was simply making the point that there is already a World Relay Championships, which were held this year at Yokohama in May. I watched it and it was really good, they had mixed relays there which were very interesting.

www.iaaf.org/competitions/iaaf-world-relays

MJ is probably pissed off at the PR stunt that perfectly highlighted women as weaker, slower, lesser than!

He doesn't seem to be misogynstic, he has discussed the physiological differences in some detail during previus competitions. I hope he is loud during next years Olympics! I hope they all are!

I thought he meant that it wasn’t ever going to get maximum attention because no country would risk putting their top relay runners in the mixed race in case their performance in the men’s and women’s individual races and relays was affected.

I am biased but I love Michael Johnson. He always seems to respect Gabby Logan (presenter), Denise Lewis and Paula Radcliffe (commentators) as equals. I also think he gives the same attention to women athletes as men in terms of praising or critiquing their performance. He may have been a bit grouchy yesterday because of the decision to allow Christian Coleman to run. (Coleman missed 3 drugs tests).

He once got into trouble for doing a documentary about the impact of slavery on the performance of black athletes. He came out publicly in support of the IAAF Caster Semenya decision.

Like other posters, I thought the race just reinforced the physical differences between men and women. Perhaps we should be calling for more mixed races in every big athletics competition.

I can see that it must be disheartening for the women/woman in the mixed legs and probably feels a bit weird for the only bloke in that leg. MJ was probably imagining himself running against women and trying to narrate it. I can see why you should specify which are M/F legs.

Can you say how brilliantly he's doing, beating the women, even if it's not so fast for a man? should you mentally be trying to put the female runners in a different context, it probably is hard to narrate in a way that is fair. The hard part is not just focusing on the men, an awareness of which would be the opposite of misogyny.

If it becomes common, I'm sure they will find a standard way to comment but I think it's okay to be a bit weirded out, especially as the BBC are strict on how people comment,

I think the heptathlon's just fine as it is, and think the men would do well to end on an 800m race rather than a 1500m procession crawl.

The real scandal is the women's 400m hurdles which are so ridiculusly low that flat 400 runners who couldn't hurdle a milk crate can win championships on their flat speed alone.

The mixed relay completely passed me by. It sound a bit gimmicky to be honest. But there have been several gimmicky features in Doha, mostly around presentation that I could frankly live without. As I didn't see this event I can't comment on Michael Johnson's views but generally I find him to be knowledgeable and much more willing than other pundits to comment objectively on performances regardless of the nationality or sex of the athletes.

There is still one major issue to be addressed in women's athletics and that is switching the heptathlon to the full decathlon. Otherwise (issues around XY people's 'inclusion' aside) we now have parity with the men.

I know there were separate mens and womens race in the walk. I've never seen them all start together though. It was essentially a mixed race because they all competed together.

"What’s odd is on the BBC commentary, Michael Johnson got really funny about the event - essentially questioning what the point of the event was and saying “innovation is important but this isn’t the way to do it”."

Biathlon has had these events for YEARS. In fact, it is part of the general season, including World Champs and Olympics. What a muppet.