It’s often said that the sport of Athletics relies upon
Usain Bolt but that is rarely truer than for this World Championships with
Athletics now besieged by doping scandal. 44 home athletes from Russia have
been banned from this year’s home event 31 Turkish athletes were given two-year
bans after testing positive for banned substances and the Jamaican team were
again asked about Asafa Powell and four others who failed tests this summer,
putting the spotlight on doping before the Championships started yesterday,
with Russia’s disgraceful treatment of those in the LGBT community an unwelcome
distraction from what matters – events on the track.
Bolt, barring a mishap, can light up the show but we’re not
likely to see anything close to the race that we were treated to at the
Olympics nearly a year ago with Yohan Blake injured, while Tyson Gay and relay team
mate Asafa Powell will be absent having failed drugs tests this time around,
leaving Bolt as a 1/7 favourite and all but certainty.
With Blake and Gay absent, there’s medals up for grabs and
Justin Gatlin, another to have been tarnished by doping, can take advantage of
a fantastic opportunity to be best of the rest without Bolt and take silver. A
winner of two golds at Helinski in 2005, a four year doping ban probably took
the rest of his best years away from him but he was a fine third at London 2012
and is probably the second best sprinter in the field present on paper and despite
being bothered by hamstring niggles, was second best behind the absent Gay at
the US National Championships and beat Bolt in the Rome Diamond League meet in
June and has a season-best time of 9.89, just .04 seconds behind Bolt’s season
best of 9.85. If running to hiss best again, he can take silver at 10/11, which
seems generous on all the major tournament evidence from the last year.
Hopes are high that the second fastest Britain in history,
James Dasalou, who made 9.91 second, took the 60m World Indoor Silver and made
the Olympic team last year and has improved still further since, but the one
worry is that his injury at the Anniversary Games might have put him a touch
off track – he blamed rustiness on a poor performance in the heats which saw
him make it through only as the fastest loser – and how much time he’s had to
improve since for the finals tonight. Instead look to American Mike Rodgers,
fourth in those aforementioned trials, who has broken 10 seconds five times
this year and won his heat in fine style, being the only person to do so in his
field, to take a medal.
Advice
4 pts Justin Gatlin without Usain Bolt (10/11 general)
1 pt Mike Rodgers to win a medal (4/1 Skybet)
No comments:
Post a Comment