La Chaux de Fond is not officially classed as 'altitude' by WA. It sits below the 1000m above sea level cut-off that WA determines it is 'altitude assisted' and is then subsequently marked with an 'A'. (however, WA have been poor at updating performances when they have been set at altitude - see the indoor Albuquerque performances, all set above 1600m, but no WA mark. So I'm not even sure if they still do this!)
It's the reason why this meeting is so popular with athletes chasing QTs in the past, they know the conditions are generally good and the altitude is legal. However, actually how much assistance it gives, no one actually knows. There are various suggestions that at 100m, it can be 15/100ths, but at 400m it is less than 10/100ths of benefit. Others say it is between 10/100ths and 20/100ths. We don't know.
We do have a better idea regarding wind readings, and it's worth pointing out that whilst the wind wasn't really strong, it fluctuated from -1.7 to + 1.7, and this had impact on some of the times.
There's also often no rhyme or reason to some of the performances. If altitude is that fantastic, why isn't everyone running PBs or SBs, why only some? In the w100m, there were 41 women competing in the heats, and we saw just 3 PBs. Of the 20 that made the 3 finals, 6 set PBs (2 of those were 2 of the 3 that set PBs in the heats..) so out of 41 women, 7 set PBs (17%) Whilst this is a significant %, it's still a minority, and the only really significant one was Salome Kora's (who went from 11.12 to 10.95). But bear in mind she is Swiss and this was a home meet!
The 400m is always less straightforward as the athlete still has to pace and have a strategy, it isnt flat out like the 100m. But in the w400m, in heat 1 Salwa Eid Naser set a marginal SB, whilst next to her Henrietta Jaeger set a huge PB. In heat 2, Lina Nielsen & Hanne Claes set big PBs but none of the other women in that heat even set SBs. In heat 3, Eveline Saalberg set a PB but no one else did. But the times themselves do not tell the whole story: Lina's sister, Lavia, tweeted that Lina's run was not unexpected because she has been neck and neck with her in training....and Lina ran 50.6 at the Paris DL last week. Similarly, Jaeger set that fantastic 300m best this season, so we knew she was in form. On Saalberg, she has been saying all season her results are not showing what she has been doing in training. So there are always back stories.
Back to Bol. This meet was an opportunity for her to go out hard against mid-level competition, with no risk of losing if for some reason she f*cked it up. she reached 300m slightly ahead of McLaughlin's WR pace. Now she will feel more confident going into the London DL meeting and better opposition. That race will tell us more. I am not expecting her to run faster there - at the moment London is due for a wet evening - but if she can run faster than her record from last season (51.45) that backs up this 50.95 from here.
