Mixed Relay - World Athletics Championships

The 50k isnt a mixed event, all the men were on the left, women on the right, Athletes very clearly announced as a women's and men's races

The 50km walk is on atm and it appears to be mixed. They all started at the same time.

Relays are great fun though, even the athletes call then fun, even the single sex events . Unlike tennis for example, where you get specialist doubles players, athletics is all about the individual performance, you don't really get relay specialists in the same way. . What MJ was saying is that there are lots of issues and problems in athletics, innovations should address these issues and he can't see what this event is addressing. He also questioned what training the athletes have been able to do, if athletes can't focus on it, it is a suitable event for the world championships.
From an athletics team point of view, what athletes do you put out there without risking their performance in the individual events. Relay medals are a bit of a bonus.
I'm sure if MJ was misongynist twat he would be very quickly sorted out by the plethora of very stong female presenters and retired female athletes who usually dominate the BBC settee

Ha, watched this earlier and thought of FWR when you saw the men absolutely flying past the Women. DH was shocked and said he didn't realise the difference was so big, and I was like 'and that is why males should not be competing in women's sports!'

I got a strange vibe from Michael Johnson about it too. I think it's great, it's still 'equal' as there are the same amount of men and women, and I don't see any reason why men and women can't compete alongside each other in this way (unless you are right about him and he just thinks that men shouldn't be lowering themselves to compete alongside women).

Ah I was only half watching but thought the ’innovation’ he was talking about was Japan’s decision to have a male run with leg that all other teams had women running and a woman on the final leg that the other teams all had men running. I commented to DH at the time how obvious the difference was between them as the Japanese guy was miles ahead of the pack of women but the woman, even with a head start was easily overtaken by the men.

I watch a lot of athletics, attend a lot of meetings, I don't ever get that feeling from Michael Johnson at all.

Athletics isn't like something like rugby, where the men & women are totally separate - the coverage tends to be a lot more balanced than many other sports. So that context might be influencing MJ a bit - but I wouldn't rule out 'massive misogynistic twat' either!