Mixed Relay - World Athletics Championships

[Dyrne]

I’m watching the World Athletics Championships because my Size 20 arse can really critique world class athletes and there was a new-ish event involving the Relay being 2 x Men and 2 x Women. Quite an interesting concept - and really shows the difference between men and women as in some of the heats they’ve got women running against men in the legs; and some interesting tactics.

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”.

I found this odd, as surely you can say that about any event in athletics? You’ve got the 100m and the 400m, so why bother with the 200m? The vibe I was getting was very much “Why should elite male athletes lower themselves to compete alongside women?” The other commentators were trying to talk around it but he stuck to his opinion that the mixed relay was a massive waste of time and kept calling it “fun”, like it wasn’t a real sport and not worthy of being taken seriously.

Maybe someone more au-fait with athletics can explain the reasoning; but is Michael Johnson just a massive misogynistic twat?

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!

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

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.

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).

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

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

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

"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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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!

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

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!

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.

Yes I actually agree now that it probably wasn’t the mixed relay itself that Martin Johnson was being unenthusiastic about as he was really grumpy about the 100m mens’ final as well - think you have a point nettie434 about Coleman as he was a bit stilted yesterday when discussing his victory.

He seemed to have loosened up a bit today and made a good point about the emptiness of the stadium when the 100m women’s medalists were doing their Victory laps. I’m guessing there was a bit of controversy about holding the finals in Doha as it seems geared towards that?

Agree the differences between men and women at elite level are stark in this event - today even with a 5 second lead the Polish female athlete was still overtaken by 4 men on the last leg.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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?

Yes I did. Also the amazing high jumpers.