Collegiate conferences, Diamond League action, a secondary meet in an off location. If you’re a true fan of track and field, this weekend had some of everything. There are links to results to the right, my impression of some of the happenings of the weekend follow.   Shanghai Diamond League – Great Head to Heads Another very early morning (4am) to catch this meet online! Not the first meet of the weekend, but the one that finally gave us a couple of star level head to heads – and they did not disappoint. The first of these was the women’s 100 with Carmelita Jeter (USA) and Veronica Campbell Brown (JAM)…

The Colorful Daegu meet is already over. I had forgotten how early things are in that part of the world compared to here in the US. Suddenly I remember the Seoul Olympics and the huge difference in time. Watching Worlds this year is going to be a middle of the night (online), time delayed (TV) nightmare! Today’s meet had some decent fields, but after the slew of marks turned in this past weekend, jet lag must surely have had an effect on many of today’s participants. Combined with temperatures in the mid 60’s, the results were not as outstanding as one would have hoped to see on the track that…

This was a very big weekend for track and field at this early stage of the season. The Diamond League opened in Doha on Friday. Saturday we had a sprint fest in Kingston. Late Saturday saw more big names taking to the track in Guadaloupe. And Sunday we got another surprise in the sprints. In what was reportedly rainy weather in Guadaloupe, Lashinda Demus (USA) took her first run over the 400 hurdles this year and finished in a world leading 54.92 – the year’s first mark under 55.00. With a best of 52.63 Demus is one of four women currently competing with a PR under 53.00 – Melaine Walker…

The hottest sprinting of the weekend was not in the Doha Diamond league event on Friday, but at the Jamaican Invitational in Kingston on Saturday. Given the results in Kingston and the talk earlier in the week about the meets being scheduled too close together, you can bet that somebody will have a different place on the schedule next year. But another time to talk about the scheduling woes of the sport. Jamaica is about sprinting, and Jamaica’s best stayed home for the weekend to ply their wares on the newly laid track at National Stadium. And the results on the track were pretty impressive. Carmelita Jeter (USA) got the…

Once again we’ve started the Diamond League without a matchup of any of the true stars of the sport. Doha produced many of the world’s top marks – but that is to be expected when you begin to get the world’s truly elite athletes on the track. We will see wholesale revisions of the yearly performance lists on a weekly basis now that the “best” are performing. But what we were promised with the unveiling of the Diamond League last year was not just another series of “European Circuit” type meets. What we were told was that this league was going to contract with the crème de la crème in…

Yes, you read the headline correctly. The head of the IAAF, the global governing body for track and field provided the following quote during an interview which can be read here. The quote made while discussing head to head meetings: “”It will be more difficult this year,” Diack said, adding that it would not be realistic, for instance, to foresee to see three or four meetings between Gay and Bolt. “Don’t expect that,” he added. “That could diminish the value of the World Championships. Maybe they will meet just once before then. We will see.”” I’m sorry, but I’m not following the logic here.The World Championships is the biggest meet…

The pro season will get started in earnest Friday in Doha, Qatar. Judging from the lineup for the meet, and the large number of top level athletes on tap, the pros will be using the Diamond League to get paid while they prepare for Worlds. We may not see them all at the same time, or get the head to head “showdowns” that we want, but it looks like the Road to Daegu will run down the middle of the Diamond League. The Start Lists for Doha are now available: Men’s List. Women’s List. Let me say that the event I was most looking forward to was the men’s 800,…

For most of the early season I’ve talked about the speed events and the collegians, because they’ve been the one’s making most of the noise. I’ve been waiting for the distance runners to join the fray – if for no other reason than I feel like we really have a chance to compete against the rest of the world. That happened yesterday at the Payton Jordan Invitational in Palo Alto. A full invitational with sprints hurdlers and field events, it’s the distances that always seem to feature at this meet. In large part I’m sure because the weather is almost always nearly perfect for distance running. The two big races…

A packed stadium. Raucous crowd. Yelling, screaming, clapping, chanting, This is track & field at its best. This is what we get annually at Penn! As other meets have either died or struggle to attract fans, Penn fills the seats every year – for FOUR DAYS! They say a meet shouldn’t last more than a couple of hours – you can’t prove it by Penn! They say you need to have a featured race run down the middle of Main Street to attract fans – you can’t prove it by Penn! They say you need World Record attempts to get the public to show up – you can’t prove it…

One of the highlights of the Penn Relays is the “USA vs. The World” segment of relays – 4×1, 4×4, Sprint Medley, Distance Medley. While all the relay teams have yet to be identified, the pools for the US and Jamaica have been released. While the names of those that are in the pools represent some of the world’s best athletes, I am a bit disappointed that the sport’s two marquee sprinters – Usain Bolt (JAM) and Tyson Gay (USA) are not among them. In addition to the fact that we are still awaiting the seasonal debuts of both athletes, it takes a bit of the luster off the USA…