Reflections from Barcelona
Friday 6 August 2010
Barcelona was hot, humid and, for six days, the centre of the athletics universe.
The large group of supporters from Cardiff was in the stadium every day and their loudest cheers were naturally for Christian Malcolm, agonisingly missing out on gold in the 200m, and Rhys Williams (pictured immediately after his race) winning silver in the 400m hurdles.
The Olympic Stadium and complex on the hills of Montjuic must be the most magnificent in the world and a fitting setting for a European Championship.
For Mary and me it was a chance to meet up once again with the many European friends we have made over the years and to pick up some of the international gossip that never makes the newspapers (no, don’t ask). It was also a chance to be embarrassed at the opening ceremony (enjoyed by over 50,000 in one of the city’s fine squares) when not a single representative from Great Britain took part in the traditional parade of the teams.
It is understandable that some athletes prefer to avoid these formalities but most nations are and were represented by a mixture of those athletes who want to take part and coaches and team officials. Shame on you, UK Athletics.
The action started in a sparsely attended stadium on Tuesday with Mo Farah and Chris Thompson gaining a one-two in the 10,000m and starting a roll of British medal successes that was to continue to the last event of the last day.
Wednesday saw Rhys safely through to round two although we heard that there was a minor scare that he might have trailed a leg around a hurdle; which would have resulted in disqualification.
From Thursday onwards the stadium was nicely full, with knowledgeable Spaniards creating an enthusiastic atmosphere.
On Thursday morning, Christian comfortably qualified from round one of the 200m but Thursday evening arrived with a thunderstorm and torrential rain. This certainly cooled down the 5000m runners and I noticed Rhodri Morgan (a long standing athletics fan) arrive in the stadium in a very bedraggled state indeed.
Miraculously, the rain stopped shortly before the semi finals of the 400m hurdles and, although the track surface was still wet, it did not affect Rhys who won his semi and made the final in impressively good form. After winning the bronze medal four years ago in Gothenburg, we were holding our breath that he could go one, or even two, better this time.
The next race on the track was the semi final of the 200m and Christian qualified for the final, looking in better form than for a long time but facing the awesome challenge of the new French star Christophe Lemaitre who had won the 100m a couple of days earlier.
The 200m final was the following day, Friday evening, with the 400m hurdles a day later, on Saturday evening.
Christian Malcolm ran a blistering bend and was leading Lemaitre until the final dip when, with a superhuman effort, the Frenchman forced his way to the line and the gold medal. If the race had been 199m, Christian would have won. This was a brilliant return to form for Christian after a few years in the wilderness and should have earned him a place (and, almost certainly a second medal) in the sprint relay team. This was not to be, however, when the final changeover in the semi final was messed up and Britain added to its inglorious tradition in this event.
Saturday dawned and with it the 400m hurdles Welsh championship decider between Swansea’s Dave Greene and Rhys. Rhys’ father and mother (JJ and Jane), along with sister Katherine and brother-in-law Graham, were bags of nerves as the start time approached.
Rhys ran the race of his life for a personal best (and club record) that broke 49secs for the first time, taking the silver medal position behind Dave Greene who produced a truly world class performance to win. The Williams family celebrations were richly deserved and went on well into the early hours (which is nothing as Barcelona does not seem to go to bed before 3 or 4 am).
So the championships overall resulted in two silver medals for Cardiff amongst a record haul of 19 for the British team. Not bad.
Away from the stadium, the Cardiff supporters (“Cardiff on Tour”) organised an enjoyable but rather raucous lunch at a restaurant in one of Barcelona’s most popular squares and enjoyed a few other “interesting” moments.
Barcelona is notorious as one of the worst cities in Europe for pick-pocketing and it lived up to its reputation. John Penny felt a hand remove his wallet from his pocket but, showing remarkable reactions, spun round and pinned his assailant to a wall. No harm done, luckily. Likewise, Graham Webb had his pocket felt but, as befits a good treasurer, it was empty.
A friend of ours, an amateur photographer, had his expensive camera stolen in seconds as he was sitting on a park bench. He reacted naturally to a tap on his shoulder by turning and, in that moment, his camera was gone.
These were merely a few of the incidents we heard of but, fortunately, they did not spoil what was a great week of athletics, meeting friends, and, now, looking forward to the next time.
The next European Championships will be in 2012, in Helsinki, and the decision to change to a two yearly cycle is controversial as they will clash with the Olympic Games. This will give Great Britain a particular problem as the next Olympics will be in London and, naturally, the athletes and UK Athletics will have to give priority to the London Games.
Most of the other European Federations are, however, strongly in favour of the change as they recognise that most of their athletes will not be Olympic medal contenders but would like an opportunity to win a European medal more often than once every four years. The dilemma is a real one and we shall have to wait and see what happens in Helsinki.
John Lister