KJT and Georgia Bell won the English Schools titles 16 years ago and while many of their contemporaries have disappeared, they have gone on to win Olympic medals this summer.
The weekend of July 11-13, 2008 is one of the busiest I have ever known while working. AW:. While the Beijing British Olympic Trials were taking place in Birmingham, the Under-20 World Championships were held in Bydgoszcz and the England Schools Championships in Gateshead.
Activity report AW:I attempted an ambitious Gateshead-Birmingham double and it was a good move in retrospect, as the school event in particular offered an amazing glimpse into the future.
Katharina Thompson (as she was then called) started my coverage of the English Schools girls age group and I described her as “undoubtedly the most impressive athlete at these championships”.
I added. “He won 12 national titles in the 300m, high jump and long jump, but had to choose just one event in Gateshead. Will number 13 be unlucky? No chance. Thompson won the high jump by six centimeters at 1.80m. Why did he choose that event? “I just enjoy it more than others.” he said.”
On the next page of our 2008 coverage is a photo of a young Georgia Bell winning the Junior Girls 800m in 2:09.28. Alongside it are images of Emelia Gorecka winning the 3000m and Jodie Williams winning the 100m, just a few of the many notable names in the event.
Sixteen years on and Katharina Johnson-Thompson, as she is now known, is world champion and Olympic silver medalist in the heptathlon (I guess she could never settle for a favorite event), while Bell broke the British 1500m record in Paris when she claimed was. Olympic bronze. Meanwhile, Williams was competing in her third Olympics in Paris as part of the bronze medal winning GB 4x400m team.
During the Paris Olympics, there was a trend on social media where people posted photos of medal winners when they were much younger. For those who enjoy such coverage, the 2008 English schools were full of interesting results and images.
On a sad note, AWs Keith Mayhew, a photographer for those English schools, sadly passed away in 2021 after contracting Covid. This 2008 event aside, he also photographed Dinah Usher-Smith, who won the English schools gold, which we used on our cover in 2013, long before she became a household name.
If you’ve been to any of these events over the years and want to jog down memory lane, you can now access our old questions through our new digital archive.
An eye for talent
My powers of prediction are pretty hopeless. For example, at the English schools in 2008, I remember two or three young athletes who really caught my eye, but their performances faltered when they reached their 20s.
I also rarely bet on athletics (maybe a couple of times a year at most) and recent bets have included Cole Hawker and Tara Davies-Woodhall to win major titles, although unfortunately I had no money on them in Paris.
Much more successful is my long-time colleague Steve Smith, whose AW: predictions ended up at the top Tour: Traffic Olympic prediction contest. A sign that at least one of us probably knows what we’re talking about.
British field events are withering on the vine
One sadly predictable aspect of the 2024 Paris Games was Britain’s lack of success in field events. With a poor performance by pole vaulter Molly Cowdery, Jacob Fincham-Dukes was left with a fifth-place flag in the high jump.
The hopelessly optimistic target set by UK Athletics in 2020 was to ‘fill the team’. by 2032 having athletes in every track and field event. In the current scenario, however, it seems rather unlikely and appears to have been quietly abandoned by current UKA bosses.
However, UKA has plans to invest in field events. Or is the governing body content to let them wither on the vine while the nation maximizes medal prospects on the track instead?
in a recent interview with AW:, 1984 Olympic javelin champion Tessa Sanderson said he would be happy to give some help and advice if asked. I’m sure other legendary athletes like Steve Beckley, Ashia Hansen, Jonathan Edwards and others will be the same.
For as long as I can remember, retired athletes have said it many times AW: in interviews, “we’d love to help, but no one ever asks.” Has anyone ever asked Meg Ritchie how she’s managed to hold the British discus record since, say, 1981?
Meg Ritchie (Mark Shearman)
No Welcome Home Party (Again)
Another gaping hole in the world of British Athletics is the lack of a post-Games ‘welcome home’ meeting. The London Diamond League was a huge success last month, but there is nothing to end the season in the UK. Instead, Brits head to Lausanne, Silesia, Rome, Zurich, Brussels and elsewhere to find the end of the season.
Great Britain’s medal haul in Paris was the most successful since Los Angeles in 1984. However, after those Olympics 40 years ago, among other things, the Nike Classic was held at Crystal Palace a few days after the Games, featuring athletes such as Carl Lewis, Katie Cook, Todd Bennett and Shirley Strong. plus the IAC Coca-Cola event also held at Crystal Palace in early September.
I wrote about this at length 12 months ago after the World Champs and nothing has changed. But we can live with the hope that something might happen after the World Championships in Tokyo in 2025 or beyond.
When grassroots athletics collides with the Olympics on TV
The British Milers’ Club Grand Prix came to a conclusion at Bury on Saturday 10th August and saw another a wave of great performances. I felt a little sorry for the athletes involved, though, many of whom would certainly love to watch the season finale at the Paris Olympics on TV.
It’s hard to fault BMC for the sterling work they’ve done over the years. And this is not a serious complaint at all. But couldn’t the organizers have tweaked their schedule to avoid clashing with arguably the biggest athletics night of the year?
Do the major football or rugby teams schedule matches to coincide with the World Cup finals?
Kelly Hodgkinson (Getty)
Acid test for middle distance runners
I wonder how many middle distance runners at the BMC event in Barry prepared for their race by taking the super trendy Bicarb System, a soup-like substance made by Maurten that acidifies the muscles and prevents runners from binding.
Of course, things were going wild in Paris. Keely Hodgkinson is known to use it, while British 800m finalist Max Burgin said: AW: that almost all 800m runners used it.
Middle distance runners aside, I’ve heard that 70-75% of 400m sprinters run in Paris. I even heard an American 10,000m competitor joke that she was well stocked before the rest of the races this season.
No filming for Olympic journalists
eagle-eyed followers of AW: may have noticed that we haven’t been posting as many video interviews on our social media channels as usual during the Olympics. This is because the IOC banned it and when we got to the Stade de France we were met with notices saying “no filming in the mixed zone”.
Apparently, TV channels are angry about spending huge sums of money for broadcast rights, only for smaller media outlets to do video interviews with athletes without paying for the privilege.
That means journalists like myself and my colleague Ewan Crumley have turned to our recorders for audio-only interviews. It felt like stepping back in time a decade or so ago, although we’re sure things will be back to normal at next year’s World Champs in Tokyo.
Why are the games over?
As for those mixed zones, with dozens of journalists clustered in close quarters, they’re clearly a breeding ground for germs. I came back from Paris to find out I have Covid, for example, and I doubt I’m alone.
Noah Lyles was a famous Covid victim, but there are undoubtedly many more. Jakob Ingebrigtsen was certainly quite clever when he passed through the mixed lane while wearing a mask during interviews.
When it came to mask-wearing athletes, he was also in the minority. Likewise, athletes and media jovially shook hands throughout the week in the French capital. What short memories we have…
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