This was meant to be the time for our favourite Laura (Muir) to take centre stage. So very very close just losing out in that final 15 meters. I really felt for her. But again the atmosphere was electric. At least on par with Mo. Aside from that it was a great night.
1. We had seats right at the front on the first bend
2. Boys high fived all the 200m heat runners including Wayde Van Niekerk as well as just about everyone else who came out onto the track. Jack and I screamed at him and he smiled back which was a nice moment. I actually paid less for these seats than for Friday night but they were much better.
3. Photos with the super chilled Christian Taylor and a heap more.
- Omar McLoud (Olympic and World Champion in 10m hurdles)
- Kerron Clement - the 400m hurdles Olympic and multi world champ
- The gregarious 21 year old Norwegian Warholm who won the 400m hurdles
- Allyson Felix warming up (a legend)
- Shaunae Miller in full flight (reigning 400m Olympic champion)
- Anita Wlodarczyk the Women's hammer world and Olympic champion
4. Ryder got a massive hug from the mascot Hero the hedgehog
5. Cool to see them coming out just before they entered the stadium as you got a good sense of how confident they were feeling whilst their warm up drills.
6. My favourite photo is the one of Laura Muir pensively looking out into the packed 60,000 arena with the crowd not realising where she was at that stage.
7. Laura Muir will have her time. She is as gutsy as they come. Her and Callum Hawkins both have massive futures.
8. I always really enjoy watching Allyson Felix - took some great pix of her warming up. She has a rediculous haul of both WC and Olympic gold medals and saw her win in London. Check out her running technique, it is absolutely flawless.
9. The British crowd really got behind all our runners.
10. We sat next to the raucous Chinese and Polish supporters who were cheering the silver and Gold winners in the women's hammer.
11. Being so close track side you really pick up on the camaraderie with all the competitors. There were nice celebrations between them (captured the hugs of the Chinese and Polish ladies as well as the German triple jumper Eckhardt and the Portuguese hugging each other).
12. There are some great stories kicking around of friendships that have been made between competitors:
- Luz Long (the appropriately named German long jumper) and Jesse Owens in the 1936 Berlin Olympics with my German grandfather in the stadium. Luz defied the Nazis to lend advice which Owens to this day aknowldeges as being a large factor in him winning gold in the long jump.
- the Australian swimmer who met the Hawaiian Duke Kahanomoku at the London Olympics in 1908 and then invited him to Sydney in 1915. It is this friendship which is solely responsible for bringing surfing to Australia.
There was a heap load more but cannot remember it all. The boys had an awesome time. They've been spoilt rotten of late.
* Ran a painful 10k on the TM at lunch. Achilles now even more sore.
** Spent another hour post midnight after getting home to try and fix the Achilles.
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