Olympics:Alistair Cragg's bid to reach a third successive Olympic 5,000m final foundered in the Olympic Stadium this morning as the Irish runner, who has struggled for form all summer, was reduced to making up the numbers in his heat.
Cragg’s time of 13:47.01 was some 15 seconds of his season’s best and was never going to be in with a sniff of making the final.Cragg explained after his race that his preparations had been severely disrupted by injury although at no stage had he considered pulling out of these Games.
“I’m highly disappointed,” he told RTE television. “I didn’t’ race coming into here. I lost some training in May and June. I got a coaching change and got really sick, two weeks of straight fevers. It took enough out of me for me to cancel any races before the Olympics.
“If I had sacrificed training coming into the Olympics for a race I didn’t think I’d be conditioned enough but my worst fear was coming out here and feeling dead legs, like you do in every other prelim, it’s not the legs you want to feel when you’re having a race.”
Pressed on whether he should have run in London, given his troubled build-up, Cragg was adamant that it never crossed his mind.
“I could’ve raced into good shape, and then after the Olympics hit it hard but I chose to actually come here and represent Ireland instead. That’s a choice I made in training two and a half months ago. The Olympic Games is the biggest stage and I thought I was fit enough to do it. I had to get through some mental barriers and I battled a lot.”
Cragg's problems were in contrast to Britain’s Mo Farah, who did not have to wait to discover his fate after finishing third in the first heat of the 5,000m, the 10,000m champion safely advancing to Saturday’s final as he aims to complete the Olympic long-distance double.
Farah’s coach, Alberto Salazar, said yesterday he thought the 29-year-old had recovered well from his exertions in the 10,000m, but Farah was still made to work hard to advance in a time of 13 minutes 26 seconds.
“It was pretty difficult,” Farah told the BBC. “I was a bit tired, it took a bit more out of me than I was expecting, but I’m really happy with where I am now and I’ve got a couple of days off. I kept getting caught, there was a lot of pushing and shoving going on, that’s what happens in the heats. Hopefully it will settle down in the final. I’m going to go out and give it 110%, that’s all you can do. It just depends how my legs allow me (to run).
“I will have done 50 laps around that track [by the end of the 5,000m final] and it wasn’t the easiest 10k, but I’ve got a great medical team. I’ll be in good hands.”