Goule, Richards grateful for World Champs experience
MOSCOW, Russia– First time IAAF World Championships participants shot putter O’Dayne Richards and middle distance runner Natoya Goule both failed to advance past the first round of their respective events on Thursday’s sixth day of three 14th staging of the championships in Moscow, but both came away with a greater appreciation of what they had to do to improve.
On a chilly morning under grey Moscow skies and biting wind gusts Goule ran 2 minutes 00.93 seconds for sixth in her heat while Richards threw 19.08m, neither coming close to their personal bests set earlier this season.
Another similarity for both were that they won Central American and Caribbean Senior titles in Mexico last month, the final preparation meets before flying to Moscow.
Richards who has a personal best 20.97m set this year admitted to some amount of nervousness as after throwing 19.08m on his first attempt, then recorded 18.89m and 18.86m to finish 10th in his group of 14 throwers and 20th from the 27 throwers who took part.
His compatriot Raymond Brown was forced out of the competition after injuring his arm in warm-ups while Pavel Lyzhyn of Belarus, a finalist in the last two Olympic Games fouled all three attempts.
‘Fred’ as he is called by his friends said he started well but his technique deserted him, “I am not happy that I did not advance,” he told reporters “but the experience of going up against the world’s best gives me a push to try and qualify for the next World Championships.”
He admitted it would have been difficult to throw the 20.65m automatic qualifying mark, which would have been his second best ever, just to qualify for the finals, but said he learnt invaluable lessons that he will take away from the championships.
Goule, the darling of Jamaica’s middle distance runners said the experience “was not as bad as she thought it would be but thought she could have finished higher, “in the top four positions.”
The Louisiana State University student said getting serious competition for the first time all season against women at her level, better gave her a glimpse of what was to come for the rest of her career.
Any race plans she had going into the race with went through the window in the first lap she said, “I can’t tell you what I was trying to do out there today, I just followed everyone,” the NCAA Division One champion said.
“This was the first time this season I was running with so many people at this level, normally I would be running in front all by myself and I did not want to go out too hard and have nothing left.”