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Diamond League highlights so far

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Tom Fordyce | 11:53 UK time, Thursday, 12 August 2010

With the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace upon us, it felt like the perfect excuse for a little look-back at the delights of the inaugural .

So, pausing only to cue drum roll and trumpet fanfare, let me present the 10 best moments of the series so far.

Now, this is a personal list. It's by no means exclusive. For starters there's a glaring absence of throws, not to mention an accidental bias towards the sprints.

See it in two ways - a chance to re-live some splendid ding-dongs, and an opportunity to suggest your own in place of mine.

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Watch our favourite highlights


In no particular order:

American David Oliver's near record-breaking in Paris - his 12.89-second run was the third-fastest ever. One day the mark will be his.

Frenchman Teddy Tamgho going third on the all-time triple jump lists with that in New York. Tyro.

. If we never did get the Big Three - Bolt, Powell and Tyson Gay - together in one race, this showed us what we might have missed as Bolt beat his compatriot in 9.84 seconds.

Belgium's meets the overhead camera at an unexpected moment in Rome. Expect it on Question of Sport shortly.

The turns into a burnout classic, with young Kenyan Silas Kiplagat coming from nowhere to pip Amine Laalo.

Asafa Powell . He could go sub-10 in his sleep.

Croatia's Blanka Vlasic and American Chaunte Howard-Lowe celebrate with some special moves after both clear 2.03m in the .

Veronica Campbell-Brown in Eugene. The old stager has still got it at the ripe old age of 28.

The super-fast 800m in Lausanne, lead by Kenya's David Rushida and with Brit Michael Rimmer setting a new PB of 1 min 44.49 sec.

Usain running 9.82 sec after three weeks out with injury. We didn't see him at his best, but this was a lovely hint.

What are your favourite moments so far? And what are you looking out for at Crystal Palace?

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Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    Seriously?

    My money is being used to pay you for this rubbish.

  • Comment number 2.

    Please do something about support for British sprinting! Why is Mark Lewis-Francis swaggering and pointing at camera at start? Don't cover the shot! He came in 6th?! Why the swaggering? Drop these prima-donnas from coverage. Stick to field events.

  • Comment number 3.

    I wonder what Kenya and Kenyans did to you, Tom - you wrote a summary of last evening's events and quietly forgot to mention that there were some sterling Kenyan performances in there - nothing on Nancy Langat, nothing on the 3,000 S/C, but a mention of Dibaba hidden somewhere in between inches on Lewis-Francis, who couldn't qualify from his heat.
    I wish the ´óÏó´«Ã½ would bring back Mike Costello.

  • Comment number 4.

    How about showing us some of the athletics? You've been on air for over half an hour now and all we've seen of today's athletics is the "legends" race.

  • Comment number 5.

    This could be the most negative reaction a blog of mine's ever had...

    mikedraper - not sure we can stop showing the sprints because some of the athletes enjoy a few antics on the blocks. Usain?

    Ranting - Nancy Langat did get a mention. British athletes will always be covered for a British audience on the ´óÏó´«Ã½. And Mike Costello has never gone away - he's commenting for Radio 5 Live, just as he has for the past four years. 909 and 693 medium wave, digital radio etc.

    brinn40 - it's coming. The main events are only just underway....

  • Comment number 6.

    Tom - thanks for your response, but do I assume from that that you think the "main events" mean "track events"? All we've seen of the discus is the winning throw, and that just now about half an hour after it actually happened. When are the ´óÏó´«Ã½ going to give field events the coverage they deserve?

  • Comment number 7.

    Hi brinn40 - yup, fair shout on the discus. Was referring too to women's pole and triple jump, but there's always a danger that an event held right at the start of the programme like the discus will get lost. Great mark from Brett Morse, tho...

  • Comment number 8.

    The UK athletes performed badly at Crystal Palace because succeeding in Europe doesn't mean they can compete with world-class athletes (mainly Americans). Re: ´óÏó´«Ã½ coverage why has Brendan Foster got such a high opinion of Lisa Dobrisky? She has not proved herself over the last two years and I fail to understand his persistence that she is world class. Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis are, at the moment, the only GB athletes who can challenge the rest of the world. As for Mark Lewis Francis - well, surely by now we can know what he cannot achieve, in spite of his high opinion of self!

  • Comment number 9.

    Quick comment on Lisa Dobriskey - she did get a silver at the Worlds last year (fair enough, upgraded from a bronze due to a DQ) and she is the Commonwealth Champion so to say she isn't world class is a little foolish.

  • Comment number 10.

    Tom,

    I am afraid you are catching the backlash for what has been truly awful coverage of the Diamond League and athletics in general on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ this year.

    The ´óÏó´«Ã½3 coverage of Paris was beyond awful.

    Even the ´óÏó´«Ã½1 coverage with it's lack of any meaningful field event coverage, the bad timetabling of events, the pointless post-race interviews, the massive home-athlete bias, the continual interruptions while we listen to ex-athletes (great athletes but bad pundits) trot-out the same soundbites race after race, the bad sound quality as the music and DJ Geoff blared in the background... the list goes on. I am a huge athletics fan and even I couldn't put up with it on Saturday and turned over to the swimming instead.

    Couple this to the disappointment of the Diamond League format itself, which promised us regular high quality meetings and failed to deliver anything more than average matches with a minor sprinkle of starlets to try and make them look better than they were. (e.g. 400m from Crystal Palace).

    The biggest selling point of the whole Diamond League was the Gay/Powell/Bolt showdown, which never even happened.

  • Comment number 11.

    "Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis are, at the moment, the only GB athletes who can challenge the rest of the world."

    Err what? When you say Mo Farrah, do you mean Phillips Idowu? You know a man who has actually won gold medals on the world stage and had world leading jumps, as opposed to a long distance runner who has never won anything on the world stage?

    Sheer lunacy.

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