Farah gets his medal from Seb Coe, with the stadium still packed. That was just a fabulous race, and a wonderful start to these championships. We’ll be back with more tomorrow. I leave you with a bit of related reading. Bye!
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Joshua Cheptegei, who came second, is only 20 – he turns 21 next month. His time of 26:49.94 was a personal best. He came sixth in the Olympics last year, and looks one for the (near) future.
Mighty Mo!
— Timmy Mallett (@TimmyMallett) August 4, 2017
Hero
Legend
Unbeatable!#London2017
Farah is still posing for family portraits on the track. I can confirm that Holly Bradshaw qualified in the pole vault, incidentally.
GOLD 🎖 for @Mo_Farah in the @IAAFWorldChamps 10K!! Electric atmosphere, incredible performance. #mobot #MoFarah #onemomile #London2017 pic.twitter.com/8TEST76QuV
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) August 4, 2017
Wow Mo Farah! 🥇#london2017
— Jamie Carragher (@Carra23) August 4, 2017
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That was, by some margin, the fastest Farah has ever had to run to win a gold medal. Here’s a breakdown:
Mo Farah's Olympic/World 10,000m titles.
— Nick Zaccardi (@nzaccardi) August 4, 2017
2017-26:49.53
2016-27:05.17
2015-27:01.13
2013-27:21.71
2012-27:30.42
Don't go @Mo_Farah, we love you! #London2017
— Ross Kemp (@RossKemp) August 4, 2017
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Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei came second. Kenya’s Tanui too third.
Farah runs straight into the crowd, and emerges with four children to milk the applause. Just brilliant.
Wow, Mo Farah #London2017
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) August 4, 2017
Mo Farah wins gold for Great Britain!
Fabulous drama, just wonderful stuff. They tried this time, but there’s no stopping Farah!
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Farah stretches clear in the home strait!
The bell rings. Farah is at the front, with Tanui now to his right, the first of three Kenyans in his slipstream.
Two laps to go, and Farah and Hadis run shoulder to shoulder in the lead.
9,000m run, and Farah remains well placed. There are nine athletes now in the leading pack.
Ive never sat through a WHOLE 10,000m race in my life! There's a 1st time for everything! ;) #London2017 #mofarah #goingforgold🏅
— Jade Johnson (@JadeLJohnson7) August 4, 2017
Farah leads! Not for long, mind. Abadi Hadis goes again, and Kamworor follows, but Farah is third and still running smoothly – though as I write that, Farah and Kamworor tangle legs, but keep upright.
Six laps to go. The crowd are on their feet. The distance races are absolutely the finest events that athletics has. Long enough to give you drama, to tell a story. Several stories, if you’re lucky.
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A 66sec lap. Farah sits sixth. “These guys are running hard, but a lot of them are going to fall apart in the last few laps,” says Steve Cram.
No point doing 62-65. Only hurting yourself. Best thing for Mo as he would be running more even. #london2017
— Ben Moreau (@Ben_Moreau) August 4, 2017
There are nine laps to go. Aron Kifle of Eritrea takes over at the front. After a couple of 61sec laps, the last couple have been slower again. This is fascinating stuff.
Farah has slipped back again now, waiting for the pace to drop. Which, it seems, it has. Once again, the 15 men at the front bunch up.
The pace slows further, the athletes bunch, and then, suddenly, Bedan Muchiri starts running. Kamworor follows, Tanui third. Three Kenyans at the front, moving fast. Can Farah keep this under control?
The pace slows, and Farah suddenly moves forward, gesturing to the crowd, asking them to roar louder. Clever move, this: the leaders know that the louder the crowd roars, the closer Farah is.
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Kamworor is still just off the front, pushing. Paul Tunui is in third, another Kenyan. Meanwhile at the front Joshua Cheptegei points to his side, asking someone to take over in the lead, and nobody seems keen to volunteer. Tunui eventually does so.
Joshua Cheptegei takes over at the front. There seems to be a Kenyan/Ugandan joint plot in train here to make this fast and hard and leave Farah behind. Time will tell.
Being able to wear the same GB vest as @Mo_Farah in Rio was one of the best feelings! 🇬🇧
— RYAN CROUCH (@crouchy7ryan) August 4, 2017
GO MO! #London2017 #WorldAthleticsChampionships pic.twitter.com/POuMK9v4IV
Geoffrey Kamworor leads the field after 2000m, with Farah about seventh from last, not bothered, running his own race.
Gwaaan @Mo_Farah 🇬🇧 #London2017 🥇
— Trevor Sinclair (@trevor8sinclair) August 4, 2017
@Simon_Burnton As great as Bolt may be, athletics can't be saved by overhyping the 100m. When'll people realize other distances also matter?
— Mark Press (@Stuffedparatha) August 4, 2017
I agree with this. The 100m is fabulous, but it’s a bit too brief to be really savoured.
The 10,000m is under way! The crowd starts to roar. 27 minutes or so of roaring to go. It was five years ago today that he won over this distance in this stadium at the Olympics – and the roaring certainly never let up then.
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Bolt was the joint eighth fastest 100m qualifier. “Throwing may look bewildering today, but it is the one activity where no animal can outdo us humans,” notes gentsracer. “We’re uniquely gifted in that field. Hence our superiority when chasing down our prey in that other age.”
The 10,000m athletes are coming out, with fireworks going off on both sides. Mo Farah is met with a predictable roar. Yes, but what’s going on with the women’s pole vault?
That was not classic Bolt. It may have been the blocks, he might just have been a bit distracted, or still digesting his nuggets. Tomorrow he might have a fight on his hands.
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Bolt blames the equipment for his stumbling start:
I’m not into these blocks. I think they’re the worst blocks I’ve ever had. It’s not as steady, it’s not as firm, as I’m used to.
Bolt starts slow but finishes fast, as is his wont, and he flies through in first place. Dasaolo comes second, and Vicaut third.
Can I please just watch Usain Bolt run again and again for EVER? #london2017
— Chad Perris (@chadperris) August 4, 2017
Britain’s James Dasaolu is also in this final 100m heat, along with France’s Jimmy Vicaut, who has run 9.97 this year and has a personal best of 9.86.
“I can’t wait to see him meet his destiny,” says Denise Lewis, sounding a little bit like a Bond villain, about Usain Bolt.
Usain Bolt is on the track. Nobody’s booing him.
"It's not the panto season" says the stadium announcer after Gatlin is booed again after easing through his heat #London2017 #IAAFWorlds
— Tom Hamilton (@tomESPNscrum) August 4, 2017
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Gatlin wins quite easily. Kim Kukyoung of Korea – or “Kim the Korean” as Steve Cram has it on commentary – comes second. With Roto red-carded and Chavaughn Walsh pulling out with injury, there were only six people in the race, so half of them go through.
There’s a false start here too, and Thando Roto is responsible! So that’s his race run. He argues his case with the official sent to usher him back down the tunnel, but down the tunnel he does indeed go.
The penultimate 100m heat features Justin Gatlin, who earns a few boos from the crowd when he is introduced. Thando Roto of South Africa, in lane nine, has precisely the same best time this year as Gatlin’s: 9.95sec.
Now they’re off! And Ujah on the inside starts well and qualifies, while Belcher on the outside starts terribly but comes through to take third place, while in the middle Bingtian Su of China wins.
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In other news, Mo Farah’s warm-up is discotastic:
Mo #Farah dà ancora spettacolo al pubblico di #London2017 con il suo riscaldamento pic.twitter.com/GrACOk7Byw
— Eurosport IT (@Eurosport_IT) August 4, 2017
A false start! Mosito Lehata of Lesotho is up way early, and that’s his night over.
The two fastest men in the fourth 100m heat are on the two outside lanes: America’s Chris Belcher in lane nine, and Britain’s CJ Ujah in lane two. Belcher set personal bests in 100m and 200m at the US trials in Eugene in June, running 9.93sec over the shorter distance, his only ever sub-10sec time.
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Holly Bradshaw’s pole vault event has started: having passed on the first two heights she clears 4.50 at the first attempt.
Prescod has qualified in third place! He starts excellently and keeps it going, coming in behind Forte and Meité!
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Heat 3 of the 100m includes three sub-10sec athletes in lanes four, five and six – Akani Simbine of South Africa, Ben Meité of Ivory Coast, and Julian Forte of Jamaica – and Britain’s Reece Prescod in lane one.
In the long jump, Jeff Henderson’s final jump is much worse than his second, but is at least legal. It’s eventually measured at 7.84m, which means the 2016 Olympic gold medallist is out!
Blake started terribly and had to fight hard to go through in third. Abdul Sani Brown won ahead of China’s Zhenye Xie, and looked very graceful doing so.
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Yohan Blake is on the track: he goes in heat 2, also in lane nine, and is the only athlete in the heat ever to go below 10sec.
Coleman crosses the line first in 10.01, and looks very comfortable doing so. Jak Ali Harvey comes second, with Cejhae Greene I think third.
The men’s 100m heats are about to start. Christian Coleman’s 9.82sec makes him the fastest this year in the first heat, and he goes in lane nine. Bolt goes in heat six.
“I think the throwing events all go back to some ancient warlike practices,” writes Jonathan Gresty, in response to my discus-inspired bewilderment. “Unlike many other sports, they do reflect some kind of useful atavistic human function.” Clearly this is true, but the discus is to ancient warlike practices what a poodle is to a wolf: clearly in some way related, but very distantly indeed.
In the men’s long jump, Jeff Henderson executes a beautiful leap well beyond the qualifying mark, but his big toe landed a little long, so it doesn’t count. The 2016 Olympic gold medalist needs to get his third jump right now, but has clearly got the form.
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Sarah McDonald came ninth in the final heat but is also through, as one of the fastest losers, so all four Britons have done the job.
Kipyegon, Meraf Bahta, Besu Sado and Laura Weightman are all through. Klosterhalfen faded in the finale but clung on to sixth.
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Konstanze Klosterhalfen is dictating this one, and is in the lead at the bell, with Kipyegon just behind her.
The last 1500m heat features Faith Kipyegon, the Kenyan Olympic champion, and two Brits: Laura Weightman and Sarah McDonald.
Muir speaks:
I just wanted to get through it, saving as much energy as possible. Really happy. Job done. Just wanted to get in the top six. It’s great to get started, it felt like it was a long time coming.
The first five cross the line almost simultaneously, and Muir is among them, with Sifan Hassan winning. Gudaf Tsegay, Malika Akkaoui, Jennifer Simpson and Hanna Klein are also through.
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This heat is much slower than the first, and as a result everyone is still bunched with a lap to go. Anyone could go through, but the fastest losers won’t be coming from this one.
Muir’s tactics are precisely the opposite of Judd’s: she spends most of the first lap right at the back of the pack.
Another 1500m heat is about to begin. Britain’s Laura Muir has the best personal best of the 15 involved, but it’s packed with quality.
Robert Harting is among the athletes to pass the qualifying mark in the discus. The throwing events are all a bit bewildering. Flinging metal and plastic discs for no obvious reason is a strange way to make a living, isn’t it?
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The men’s long jump qualifiers have begun. Anyone who jumps beyond 8.05m, or the 12 best, go through: Luvo Manyonga of South Africa does so at the first attempt.
Jess Judd talks. She seems pleased. Her time of 4:03.73 was a personal best:
I can’t believe it. I think the crowd were just amazing. I really controlled it. The last lap I was hurting a bit. I thought I was going to have to run the race of my life to get through. I can’t believe it. I’m just so happy.
What a gutsy human being @jessjuddxx is!!! Brilliant way to use the home crowd.. #London2017 🇬🇧
— Michael Rimmer (@MichaelRimmer8) August 4, 2017
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As they go round the final bend Judd gets overhauled: five women overtake her, but sixth is good enough. That was, mainly thanks to Judd, a fast race. Dibaba wins it, followed by Semenya.
Into the final lap and Judd still leads, with Dibaba on her shoulder. The crowd is, it must be said, going wild.
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Jess Judd has gone out in front from the start. She ran her personal best of 4:05.20 in Watford a couple of months ago, and a repeat would comfortably see her through.
Caster Semenya is the most famous face in the first heat, with Britain’s Jessica Judd and Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba, the defending champion and the only woman in the race to have gone under 4min this year, also involved.
The women’s 1500m heats are next on track. There are 14 runners in the first heat and 15 in the other two; the first six in each race go through, and the six fastest losers.
For completists, the two fastest losers in the 100m preliminaries both ran in the final race. They are Amdoul Riffayn of Comoros and Jean Batambok of Cameroon, whose time of 10.71 was a personal best, and they both go into the first round.
Gittens, of Barbados, duly wins. New Zealand’s Joseph Millar follows him home, with Warren Fraser of the Bahamas third.
The final men’s 100m preliminary race features Ramon Gittens, whose personal best of 10.02 is the best of all the athletes in the prelims.
Discus rules: anyone who throws 64.5m will go through to the final, or if less than 12 people manage that, the 12 best of the night.
The men’s discus competition has started, with Iran’s Ehsan Hadadi first out. He, um, throws it quite well.
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The third 100m heat is won by Slovakia’s Jan Volko in a personal best time of 10.15, followed by Mario Burke of Barbados and Abdullah Mohammed of Saudi Arabia.
I am not convinced by Hero the Hedgehog.
Turkey’s Emre Zafer Barnes wins comfortably, with Hassan Saaid and Walsh joining him in the next round. Tamoa, tragically, came last.
In the next heat, Chavaughn Walsh of Antigua & Barbuda looks the fastest. Tuvalu’s Ielu Tamoa, on the other hand, has a personal best of 12.73 and seems unlikely to trouble Usain Bolt or, indeed, most other people.
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Three go through to the first round, and three scream way clear of the remainder: Matadi is the winner, followed by Odhiambo and Canada’s Brendon Rodney.
The first race is about to be run! It’s a men’s 100m preliminary heat. The fasted man in the race is Mark Otieno Odhiambo of Kenya, who set his personal best of 10.14 this year. Emmanuel Matadi of Liberia has the same personal best, but has only run 10.18 in 2017.
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I think 20 minutes was about right, but there was much too much speaking, and nowhere near enough mass dancing and absurd novelty costumes.
@Simon_Burnton "welcome to London, now let's get it on" enough of the ceremonial malarkey
— John McEnerney (@MackerOnTheMed) August 4, 2017
Sadiq Khan’s speech wasn’t bad, to be fair. It just wasn’t very well choreographed.
Well, that’s it. Perhaps the most half-hearted opening ceremony in the entire history of opening ceremonies.
Sadiq’s still going. There are now only three minutes of opening ceremony left. They’d better be amazing.
And another speech from Sadiq Khan. The last five minutes had better be good.
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And another speech, from Sebastian Coe! We’re halfway through the opening ceremony, and some volunteers doing some singing is very much the highlight so far.
And now … a speech from the Duke of York! “Ladies and gentlemen, my mother the Queen is sorry she is unable to be here this evening,” he begins.
Rebecca Ferguson comes on to sing the national anthem, in a dress so long she can’t get over the trackside camera track thingumy without assistance.
#London2017 #WorldChamps has started & it's #bittersweet to see athletes getting the #medalceremony they were ROBBED of experiencing! 😔
— Jade Johnson (@JadeLJohnson7) August 4, 2017
Question of the day:
MASSIVE QUESTION .. does the 'tash' stay for #london2017 ??
— Andrew Butchart (@andybutchart91) August 4, 2017
The opening ceremony has begun! A choir comprised of 2012 Olympic volunteers are singing Elbow. It’s actually not bad, but I don’t think Beijing are feeling any sense of inferiority quite yet.
I haven’t seen much of this year’s mascots, sadly, but it’s early days.
ICYMI: we revealed our championship mascots yesterday
— London 2017 (@London2017) April 21, 2017
Hero the Hedgehog - https://t.co/DfIhjATA7X
Whizbee the Bee - https://t.co/Hychn5RtJ9 pic.twitter.com/YjdFjAnOC2
Tonight’s schedule in full:
6pm: Opening ceremonials
7pm: Men’s 100m preliminaries (there will be four of these, and nobody with a personal best below 10sec is involved, so Usain Bolt will still be eating chicken nuggets at this point)
7.20pm: The first lot of men’s discus qualifiers
Sweden’s Daniel Stahl, the favourite for gold and author of this year’s biggest throw, is involved here
7.30pm: Men’s long-jump qualifiers
South Africa’s Luvo Manyonga has the first, second, third and fourth-biggest jumps of the year to his name, and is 2/7 favourite
7.35pm: Women’s 1500m first round
This will feature the first British athlete of the evening, Jesica Judd, in heat one, though Laura Muir in heat two is a better bet for success. Holland’s Sifan Hassan, also in heat two, is the favourite
7.45pm: Women’s pole vault qualifiers
Britain’s Holly Bradshaw is in Group A, while the favourite, Greece’s Ekaterini Stefanidi, and America’s Jenn Suhr, are in Group B
8.20pm: Men’s 100m first round
This is where the big boys come in
8.45pm: The second lot of men’s discus qualifiers
Featuring Jamaica’s Fedrick Dacres, the second favourite
9.20pm: Men’s 10,000m final
A certain Mo Farah is after his third world title and 1/3 favourite. The next six in the betting are all Kenyan or Ethiopian, led by Geoffrey Kamworor. The only two people to run faster than Farah this year are both Ethiopian: Abadi Hadis and Jemal Yimer, whose marks, as well as the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth fastest times of 2017, were all set in the same race, in Holland on 11 June.
9.53pm: Men’s 10,000m medal ceremony
9.55pm: That’s yer lot
So the crowd have already got to cheer two lots of British medalists – both women’s 4x400m teams – before the action has even started.
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They are, in the meantime, giving some medals to people cheated out of medals because of drug cheats in 2009, 2011 and 2013.
Aha! That’s because it doesn’t start for half an hour!
The BBC seem to be ignoring the opening ceremony in favour of chit-chat.
Hello world!
So, it begins. The IAAF World Championships will start at 7pm BST, about an hour from now. Before that, though, we’ve all got an opening ceremony to savour. Here’s what we know about it so far:
The programme will include performances by the renowned British soul singer Rebecca Ferguson who will sing the national anthem and perform her hit song Glitter and Gold, and The Games Maker Choir, formed by volunteers who participated at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, who will perform One Day Like This by Elbow, as a tribute to the legacy of the volunteers of those games and to those who will be volunteering at the IAAF World Championships London 2017.
The ceremony will be hosted by Iwan Thomas, the 1997 world 4x400m champion, and 1998 European and Commonwealth 400m champion.
The pre-show will begin at 6pm with a reallocation ceremony for five 4x400m relay teams and two 400m runners whose finishes at the 2009, 2011 and 2013 World Championships have been upgraded following the disqualification of the results of the original medallists after their sanction for anti-doping rule violations.
So far as I can tell, that leaves two questions for me to answer:
Question 1: How come I don’t remember Rebecca Ferguson’s hit single Glitter and Gold?
Answer: Because they are using a very loose definition of the word “hit” – the official UK chart company also have no recollection of it, but according to Wikipedia it reached No116, and that was in 2012. They have presumably chosen a five-year-old No116 smash because it has the world “gold” in it.
Question 2: What does a World Championships opening ceremony look like? Will there be flocks of sheep, gaggles of geese, Kenneth Branagh and the Queen jumping out of a helicopter?
Answer: Don’t get too excited. It’s no Olympic opening ceremony, to be sure. But it might look something like this (though this is from Beijing, where they really go to town on their opening ceremonies):
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