Clonliffe Harrier Alistair Cragg finished well down in his heat in this morning`s 5,000m in the Olympic Stadium, London. In this his third Olympic games Alistair found the pace in heat number 2 simply too hot to handle, with this race considerably faster than heat 1 he was reeling off laps around the 64/65 second mark however drifted to the back of the pack and out the back door before half way. He worked his way back to the pack a lap later and tried to move around the outside to the front. The pace picked up again and it was not to be his day as he drifted backwards and was dropped. A lowly 17th in a time of 13.47.01 was scant reward as one would assume that brings the curtin down on his international track career. Post race Alister was quoted on athleticsireland.ie as follows:
“When I caught the leader again they did not give me a second to get my feet,” Cragg said. “I was hoping to get in front because sometimes when you’re hurting and you are able to get your nose in front you forget about the hurting.”
No doubt Alistair`s thoughts are already looking towards the roads, where he has enjoyed considerable success in recent years, witness his Irish best in the New York City Half Marathon, and his unfinished business with the Marathon. For now, well done Alistair,. three Olympic Games in something to be proud of.
On the subject of the London Olympic Games an update on the performances of some of the athletes who visited Clonliffe for the Morton Games: both Zoe Buckman (AUS) and Lucy Van Dalen (NZL) went as far as the 1500 semis, Jessica Smith (CAN) went as far as the 800 semi, Emma Coburn (USA) got to the 3,000 sc final where she ran a pb of 9.23.54 in finishing 9th, Matt Centrowitz (USA) finished just a fraction away from an Olympic medal 4th in the 1500 final (3.35.17) and Nick Symmonds (USA) ran a pb of 1.42.95 in finishing 5th in that race of the Olympics the David Rudisha World Record 800 final.