11 August 2012

Evening session   

Men’s 5,000m final
 
Mo Farah (Alberto Salazar) brought the Olympic Stadium to life as one of the greatest achievements in British athletics history was completed with his victory in the 5,000m final, sealing a historic double after his 10,000m final victory last week. Farah won a relatively slow race in 13:41.66, leading for the entire 52-second final lap.
 
He said: "It’s just unbelievable. I had a lot of confidence going into the race.I got great support from the crowd.

"It means a lot to me. I’m just amazed. Two gold medals, who would have thought it? I want to thank everyone who has supported me."

Women’s 20km Race Walk

Johanna Jackson (Andi Drake) suffered the unfortunate fate of being disqualified in the women’s 20k  race walk final on the Mall. Despite being disappointed with not being able to finish, the 27-year-old accepted that disqualifications occasionally come with the territory in her discipline.

"Unfortunately that’s the name of the game in race walking. That can happen, you can get disqualified and obviously this is the worst place it could happen.

"But I was on for a PB and I was feeling great. I wanted to give it my all and there’s no point in pulling back just because you’ve got cards. You’ve got to give it everything."

Women’s 4X400m relay final

Perri Shakes-Drayton (Chris Zah) was brought in to the British squad in addition to yesterday’s trio of Shana Cox (Lloyd Cowan), Lee McConnell (Rodger Harkins) and Christine Ohuruogu (Lloyd Cowan) for today’s final, but despite a valiant effort that saw the quartet run 3:24.76, they finished out of the medals in fifth place.

Shakes-Drayton looked positively at the season’s best time despite finishing out of the podium places.

"Today I know we would have loved to have got a medal but it didn’t go our way. As a whole the team we have done well, we did a season’s best so that’s the best we’ve run together. I’ve enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to the future ahead. The team on the whole have done very well and I think we’ve got a bright future ahead of us."

Morning session

On the penultimate day of the London 2012 Olympics Athletics programme, the morning session saw action move to the Mall and the Team GB representative Dominic King (Andi Drake) take the the streets in the men’s 50km walk.
 
Despite receiving an early warning before the 10km point, King settled well into the race to work his way solidly through the pack and cross the line in 51st with 4.15:05, his third fastest time over the gruelling 50km distance.
 
Afterwards he reflected on the warning that had slowed his progress in the field:
 
He said:  

"It affected me – unfortunately coming into this race my priority was to finish the race as I have, in the past, had issues with getting disqualified and I have been working on it for the last 18 months to 2 years, so my priority is always to finish a race and if I could do that the second priority was to get a personal best.

"I didn’t do too bad today –but it was my third fastest time ever and I had to get an 8 minute personal best just to be qualify for this championship so medals were never going to be in the question. However I feel like I got my own medal just by getting the bggest cheer of the day.
 
"This is my first Olympic Games and it hasn’t really sunk it completely – I think that’ll happen in a couple of weeks time when I look back at it and think ‘I’ve been to the London Olympics’ that I’d competed and finished that was the priority for today. I fully appreciate the support that came out here today and not just supporting myself – supporting the field. It’s a gruelling event and that can take you and lift you that extra 2 or 3 minutes up the road.
 
"The crowd really helped us get through it – without the crowd it would have been ten times harder to get through the race."
 
Kings Race Splits:
 
5k: 23:45 (56th)
 
10k: 47:53 (62nd)
 
15k: 1.12:21 (61st)
 
20k: 1.37:07 (61st)
 
25k: 2.02:31 (60th)
 
30k: 2.28:28 (59th)
 
35k: 2.54:05 (56th)
 
40k: 3.21:25 (52nd)
 
45k: 3.48:52 (51st)
 
50k: 4.15:05 (51st)