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My National Relay Plan
I was catching up with a friend a couple days ago and since it had been a while we began to review the Olympics. Bolt’s double, Felix’ exploits, Mo Farah, David Rudisha. I had almost forgotten just how outstanding the London Games were. Being old relay teammates however, we talked a lot about the relays – the 4x1s. After all, how often do you get to see WRs in both races AND get to see barriers broken at the same time? Don’t bother looking, it’s the first time that it’s happened in the same meet with electronic timing. We went through both races with a fine toothed comb. The personnel…
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What are the Sport’s Best Rivalries (pt2)
The last time around I took a look at some rivalries on the men’s side of things that l think would be a good sell to build the sport from a marketing perspective. Today I want to broaden that to include the women (and a hybrid) – who actually tend to compete against reach other on a more regular basis than the men. The first rivalry I want to look at really hasn’t become one yet but I think could be a doozy – Allyson Felix v Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce over 200 meters. Both women have experienced rivalries in other events – Felix v Veronica Campbell Brown over 200,…
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What are the Sport’s Best Rivalries?
Coming off a successful Olympics and 2012 season, it’s time to take a look at how the sport can improve moving forward. One of the glaring problems in the past few seasons in my opinion has been the false start rule which I addressed a couple of days ago. When I listen to what other people are saying, one of the biggest complaints that many people have about the sport of track and field is the lack of head to head competition among the sport’s best athletes. A complaint that I think stems more from their disappointment with the top end male sprinters, who just can’t seem to find each…
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IAAF, Please Revise the False Start Rule
I know the sun has barely set on the 2012 season, but if you’re going to fix something it’s never too early to get started. While I think that several things could use an overhaul in this sport, the most glaring is the false start rule! Fortunately, the Games did not suffer from the disgrace that was Usain Bolt being tossed out of the World Championships final in Daegu. But we did see several high profile athletes wave good bye in other meets on the Circuit. Athletes like Tyson Gay, Kelly Ann Baptiste and Aries Merritt were among many that were casualties of this rule in 2012. If someone has…
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Emerging Faces of 2012
The beginning of every year has those athletes that everyone is waiting on pins and needles to see. We can hardly wait to see what Usain Bolt, Sally Pearson, Allyson Felix and David Rudisha are going to produce. But while I enjoy watching the veterans do their thing, what’s really exciting is watching new talent emerge. After all, once upon a time every star veteran had a breakout season of his or her own. Every year we get to witness athletes coming of age and this year was no different. In recent seasons we’ve got to watch Kirani James and Yohan Blake, among others, blossom into verifiable “stars” internationally. Following…
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The Top Performances of 2012
It’s time to start looking back on what turned out to be a pretty awesome season. I figure the best place to start reviewing is with the top performances, since that will certainly lead into discussion about the top athletes. This year there was no dearth of outstanding performances, even more than usual in an Olympic year. We can start with the fact that there were five WR’s this year – three individual and two relays – as an indication of just how good the performances were in 2012. I separate them out as individual and relay, because the relays sort of skew the conversation a bit since they are…
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Aries Merritt Near Flawless in 12.80!
Perfection. That’s what I thought of when I would watch Renaldo “Skeets” Nehemiah run the hurdles. Solid out of the blocks. Nerves of steel. barely gliding over the tops of the hurdles. Winning comfortably against the best competition the world had to offer. Back in the day that was Greg Foster, and Skeets was good enough that in his final WR run of 12.93 Foster finished 2nd in 13.03 – at the time making Foster the #2 hurdler of all time with the #3 time. Today, perfection has a new name as Aries Merritt ran his EIGHTH consecutive sub13 to set all kinds of records. First of all it wasn’t…
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Brussels Has Some Good Match Ups
The second half of the Diamond League final in Brussels offers the best opportunity to see some final match ups before the season comes to an end. As I look at the provisional start lists there should be some exciting head to heads. Let’s start with the men’s 200 where we get a final look at Yohan Blake – on the track where he dropped his 19.26 and became a household name. It would have been nice to see him and Bolt go head to head here – hint hint. Instead we get to see him against Christophe Lemaitre, Warren Weir, and Jason Young and reserve ourselves to comparing his…
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Aries Merritt Best in Berlin
He doesn’t get the biggest headlines – those seem to be reserved for Jamaican sprinters Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake. He hasn’t had the greatest individual performance this season – that was easily David Rudisha’s barrier breaking 1:40.91 800 in London. And he didn’t have the greatest performance we’ve seen in several decades – that would be the US women’s record shattering 40.82 relay run at the Games. What Aries Merritt has done however, is quietly put together the most consistent season of high quality performances of any athlete on the planet this year, and perhaps the greatest season any hurdler has ever had! For the 13th time this season…
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Drizzle Fizzle and Sizzle in Zurich
Zurich has traditionally been one of my favorite meets over the years. Mostly because, even before there was a Diamond League (or Golden League) Zurich has always attracted the world’s top sprinters – and this year was no exception. Don’t get me wrong, Zurich is annually one of the world’s best meets overall with high level fields in all of their events, but the sprints have always been special in Zurich. Today however, after watching this meet I’m left with a bag of mixed feelings labeled drizzle, fizzle and sizzle. The drizzle is from the rain that feel during the meet. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a year…