With Christmas less than a week away I hope its not too late to send my Christmas Wish List to Santa. Of course my presents are already under the tree, so this list is dedicated to the sport of track and field. I’m looking forward to an exciting 2010, and with a little help from Santa it could be superlative. So without further delay here is my Wish List for Track and Field: • Good health for Tyson Gay. In spite of his steady improvement, we haven’t seen a full healthy season from Tyson since 2007 – the year he was double World Champion. Yet he enters 2010 with bests…

Tiger Woods has been the most identifiable athlete on the planet this New Millennium. He has become THE face of golf – nearly single handedly increasing its visibility. If you doubt that simply take a look at the increase in golf tournaments on TV since his rise to the top – and the difference in ratings when he does not compete. As a matter of fact the year that Tiger took off to rehab after surgery television ratings dropped in half as viewership went from approximately 4 million viewers per tournament down to approximately 2 million per tournament. That’s HUGE! With his squeaky clean image, leading the way like Rudolph’s…

With only a couple of weeks left in 2009, it’s time to take a final look back on a very interesting season. Despite being a World Championship season, many events seemed to spur only average performances. But, as happens with regularity in this sport, there were those athletes and events that found a way to rise above the “average” and create the kind of excitement found only in the sport of track and field. So to celebrate those accomplishments, I give you my first ever Finish Line Awards. Athlete of the Year – Usain Bolt The bulk of Bolt’s season was pretty average. Yes he continued to win, but when…

After thirteen months of rehab It looks like Liu Xiang could be fully recovered from his Achilles injury. If he is indeed 100% and back to normal, the 110 hurdles could give the sport another super rivalry to showcase. Prior to his injury, Xiang was as dominant a force as the event has seen. Twice a WR setter in the event and the first man under 12.90 (12.91, 12.88), he has Olympic (Athens ’04) and World (Osaka ’07) golds to his credit prior to his injury. Ironically the man that should be his chief rival, Dayron Robles, has somewhat mirrored his accomplishments of late. In ’07 Robles broke through to…

The schedule of events for the Diamond League meets is out and the first thing that popped into my head was: what’s happened to the double? Do you even remember the double? Odds are if you started watching professional track and field at the turn of the century (this century) you may not. The double, that’s when an athlete competed in two different individual events in the same meet. Like the 100/200, 800/1500, LJ/TJ, and SP/Disc. Happens all the time at the high school and collegiate level. Has become a rare commodity on the professional level. At the high school and collegiate level we see athletes double all the time.…

Looking back on this season and looking ahead to 2010 the men’s 400 has to be the new frontier – at least in sprinting. After all the 100 is pretty much on lock down with Usain Bolt (9.58), Tyson Gay (9.69) and Asafa Powell (9.72) all scheduled to compete in the new Diamond League – with every meet scheduled to have one or more of this troika competing. There may be a little more leeway in the 200, though I would anticipate that either Bolt (19.19) or Gay (19.58) should be in the majority of serious races out there. In the event there is a meet that doesn’t have at…

With the end of the year upon us it’s already time to start looking forward to the next track season. And as I look ahead to 2010 one of the most intriguing stories that could develop could be the return of Justin Gatlin to the sport. I think the story is still fresh enough in everyone’s mind that it doesn’t need to be repeated in total. A positive test result from the Kansas Relays in 2006 for testosterone ( a result that he gave up his right to contest, yet contested the ban), coupled with a previously excused incident while he was at Tennessee (for a medication prescribed by his…

For twelve years The Golden League was the premier competition series in the sport. Run exclusively in Europe during the heart of the “Circuit”, the six/seven meet series allowed a select group of athletes the opportunity to win all, or a share of a $1 million jackpot. Select meaning that only a handful of events qualified for jackpot competition each season. After a dozen years, the Golden League is getting an upgrade to the fourteen meet “Diamond League” consisting not only of meets in Europe but adding competitions in Asia, the Middle East and the United States: Doha (QAT) – 5/14Shanghai (CHN) – 5/23Oslo (NOR) – 6/4Rome (ITA) – 6/10New…

Cross country season is always a good time to take a look at distance running. Especially this fall as for the first time in many years we’re coming off a track season where we saw substantial improvement among our middle and long distance runners. 2009 saw a resurgence in our middle distance women and our distance running men such as we’ve not seen in a very long time. Not that we haven’t seen individuals rise up on occasion. But, for me, I haven’t been as excited about distance running since Alan Webb burst on the scene as a high school senior in 2001! Webb’s breaking of Jim Ryun’s HSR in…

As we take time out to celebrate America’s war heroes on Veterans Day, I thought it might also be appropriate to celebrate our Track and Field Heroes. After all, just as our veterans went in to battle to preserve the freedom of our nation, there have been many heroes in our sport that have paved the way and set standards for today’s athletes to follow. So following are some of the sport’s greats. Athletes that I feel during my lifetime have made a difference and helped to make the sport great. I know there will be many omissions. That’s one of the great things about this sport – we’ve had…