Daegu IAAF World Championships

After a slight change in plans, we arrived in Daegu early on Sunday afternoon via KTX from Busan. With no tickets for Saturday and not sure of the scalping procedures in Korea, we weren't counting on getting in to see any events on the first day of competition and first checked into our hotel. 

maybe i'm a little more excited than Tim.

made it!

We took a free shuttle bus to the stadium which lies a little ways outside of Daegu and wasn't the most convenient location to get to (or from).  

The stadium grounds were pretty impressive, the stadium itself able to seat just over 60,000 spectators.  

We arrived just after the opening ceremonies had started and finally agreed to pay face value for a couple of tickets in the 2nd row, right in front of the long jump pit.  Lucky us, because the women's long jump qualifier just happened to be scheduled for that evening!

We caught the tail end of the ceremonies and entered just in time to see the singing of the official song of the games sung by 2 Korean singers who, I'm sure, are very popular in Korea but actually unknown to me. 

?

Our seats for the evening allowed us to take in the men's decathlon high jump, the women's 10,000m final, and the women's long jump.  We also got a view from across the track of the men's 100m 1st round of heats.  

We sat about 3m away from the long jump pit and were able to see the athletes talking with their coaches and getting supporting words from their families. It was a really cool experience to see that they speak and get worried and laugh just like anyone else - but they also break world records.

the eventual silver medallist, calling for her coach.

a  blurried view of the women's 10 000m.

    

It was a long evening and a long walk to the subway station from the stadium, but we were up and at it again on Sunday with tickets for the whole day which we'd purchased nearly a year ago. 

I made a sign for the last event of the evening, the 100m final, with hopes that I'd somehow make it onto TV.....

Our seats were 12 rows back from the start line for the 100m, which was also a great view for the men's decathlon pole vault event which took place early in the afternoon. 

We saw Canada's Damian Warner do a few jumps and proudly waved our mini Canadian flag for him. 

I've decided pole vaulting is my favorite event to watch... partly due to the sheer magic of someone being able to launch themselves 5 metres into the air. 

We also had a great view of the top men in the decathlon, Americans Ashton Eaton and Trey Hardee.

go canada!

We took a break in the afternoon to take in some of the events going on outside of the stadium and I was quite surprised at the lack of commercialism on the grounds.  At a similar event in North America I'm pretty sure that there would be dealers hocking their wares left right and centre, and just as many people buying.  But, in Daegu the only place to buy things was a smallish souvenir booth with a few t-shirts and souvenirs. Even adidas, the main sponsor had no shoes, or other paraphernalia for sale. 

don't worry. I won't quit my day job.

We ran into a man who may just be Usain Bolt's biggest fan, and snapped a shot with him, as well as with the Daegu mascot. 

Back inside the gates, our tickets allowed us entrance to a buffet for supper, where we caught up with some running friends and some of us enjoyed a few free beer:)

I excused myself a little early to get back to the seats for the men's 800m semi final which was a really enjoyable race to watch.  Long enough to settle in, but fast enough to be exciting. 

The women's long jump took place along with the men's 100m semi final heats when we got another, much closer look at Bolt who ran a relatively slow 10.12 sec 100m to win his heat. 

Other races on the track were the women's 400m semi-final with American Allyson Felix, and the 10,000m men's final in which the reigning 5 year champion withdrew due to injury, midway through the race. The final lap came down to a battle between Brit Mo Farra and Ethiopian Ibrahim Jeilan.  Our friends Simon and Adam (fellow Brits) managed to become part of Mo's family for about 3 minutes while they snapped a few photos with him during his victory lap. 

adam and simon with mo.

walter dix, 100m semi final

the bolt himself.

semi final 100m

men's 10 000m

The men's 1500m race was the final event for the supremely athletic male decathletes and it was heartwarming to see the cheers for Korean Kim Kun-Woo who nearly won the race but lost his lead in the final seconds.  

And..... the moment we'd all been waiting for finally arrived.  Bolt strutted in, showboating as usual, doing his hair in the camera/giant megatron screens, and being as cocky as possible (and why shouldn't he be?) As the men lined up, the audience was abuzz with predictions, all of them starting with ' well, AFTER Bolt it'll be....'. 

The men did their warm-up, stripped down to their uniforms and took their places on the start blocks.  Everyone was silent until the gun went off. Then the gun went off again. 

USAIN BOLT IS DISQUALIFIED!

bolt before the 'mistake'

Due to a new regulation by the IAAF, athlete's who commit a false start are immediately disqualified from the race.  There used to be an allowance for 2 false starts but this was changed to quicken the pace of races, apparently. 

So, to everyone's surprise, shock, and utter disbelief, after a very obvious premature jump out of the blocks, Usain Bolt, world's fastest man, was disqualified from the world championship. 

After everyone calmed down and realised the race still had to happen, with or without the Bolt, the guys took off and saw fellow Jamaican Yohan Blake, Walter Dix, and Kim Collins take the podium with a winning time of 9.93.