After an exciting weekend of events at the World Championships, I am thrilled that Great Britain are leading the medal table with gold medals for Mo and Jessica. I am also delighted for Laura Muir making it to the 1500m final after the great year she has had setting personal bests for 800m, 1500m and 3000m. I’m looking forward to watching that race tomorrow.
Watching the Women’s Steeplechase was always going to be difficult. Viewing it from the comfort of my sofa when I would of given my soul to be competing is tough to accept.
Although I honestly have no idea if I'll even be able to race next year following what will be 10 months out of the sport, if I am I will be doing everything I can to make sure I run the Olympic Qualifying time twice to give myself the best chance of selection for the team.
However, it was good to see all the usual suspects in the qualifying round of the Steeplechase. The quality of the times produced by the athletes this year has been a little down on previous years. I would like to think it's due to the current blood passport system, slowly removing the element of cheating involved in athletics.
Even the African athletes don’t look as strong as in previous years and, for the first time ever , we have an American athlete with a real medal prospect, Emma Coburn. Also, coming back from injury, the Olympic Silver medallist from London 2012 (although it looks like she will be upgraded to Gold), Habiba Ghrib, looks in brilliant shape again. The Tunisian will head into the final as favourite.
My predictions: Habiba Ghribi (TUN), Hyvin Jepkemoi (KEN), Emma Coburn (USA), with a winning time of 9 minutes 10 seconds.
