As we closed out the seasons of 2006 and 2007, sprinters Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay had taken the standards of greats Carl Lewis, Donovan Bailey, Maurice Greene, Frankie Fredericks, and Michael Johnson and cranked it up a notch making 9.8 more common place, 19.7 a winning time in a Major once more, and sub 20 something to look for when the best stepped on the track. But the ceiling still appeared to be solidly in place on the ultimate performances of the sport, as 9.7 was still an anomaly and 19.6 had been 10 years in the waiting. But, as I said in Part One, the best stuff started…

Sci Fi fans will be familiar the Fox show “Fringe”. A show about a group of FBI agents that use “fringe” science to investigate unexplained phenomena occurring all over the world. Strange occurrences that boggle the mind that the Fringe Team finds a way to make sense of by the end of the show’s hour. I would love to have Agent Dunham and her crew come take a look at track and field and see if they can help me make sense of what has happened to sprinting in the past few years, as it too is suffering from a spate of unexplained phenomena lately! Consider what’s happened in less…

The season is supposed to be winding down, but a couple of sprinters that didn’t have the success they had hoped for in Berlin seem to be trying to make a point lately. The promoters of the Shanghai Grand Prix wanted desperately to have Usain Bolt compete in this meet. But with sterling runs by Tyson Gay and Carmelita Jeter that put both solidly in the #2 position all time in the men’s and women’s 100 Shanghai had no problem turning out awesome sprint performance without Bolt. One year ago Usain Bolt shattered the WR with his sizzling 9.69 dash in Beijing. A run that it was said no one…

Post Berlin Review – US Middle Distance For years, actually a couple of decades now, the US hopes in Majors has rested on the shoulders of the sprints, hurdles, and relays. In Berlin, we still garnered the majority of our medals from the speed events. But for the first time in a very long time our middle and long distance corps showed signs of life – of promise for the future. Surprisingly, we still showed the greatest weakness in the lesser of the distance events – the 800 meters. On the women’s side, Maggie Vessey showed that experience counts as much as talent when it comes to running at this…

Every once in a while you get something unexpected at a meet like this, and in Greece it came in the form of Carmelita Jeter’s 10.67 dash down the track. How good was Jeter’s run? Well, for starters, it was the 5th fastest time in history. Only Marion Jones (once) and FloJo (three times) ever ran faster. And when taken into account that Jeter’s time came with a slight negative wind, and all but FloJo’s incredible 10.49 came with winds of 1.0 mps or greater, it may well have been the second best performance ever only behind the WR itself! And take note that Marion’s single better performance also came…

It’s been a long season and it’s starting to show, as times and marks on the first day of the World Athletic Final were generally a notch below what we saw at the World Championships in Berlin. While the marks were a bit off however, the competition itself was as good as it gets, as the world’s best went toe to toe and continued to push each other to the line in Thesseloniki Greece. None were any closer than the women’s 200 where World 200 champion Allyson Felix squared off against World 400 champion Sanya Richards. 100 meter speedster Kerron Stewart (JAM) lead off the turn but that’s where the…

There will be other meets to close out the season, but none will attract the number of top athletes that this weekend’s World Athletics Final will host. With only the top athletes in each event invited to participate in a single final, the Athletics Final is much closer to what a real World Championships should be like – just the best against the best. As such it will make for a very exciting weekend of track and field – the last of the year. Most fans will be looking to get their last look at double world champion Usain Bolt, who this weekend will contest only the 200 meters. But…

Friday’s Golden League meet in Brussels marked the end of the Golden League which next year will morph into the new bigger Diamond League. This year’s version had three winners: Sanya Richards, Yelena Isinbayeva, and Kenenisa Bekele. Each punctuated their winning a share of the million dollar jackpot with sterling wins. Richards continued her domination of the women’s 400 by setting another yearly best. This time in 48.83 – a world leader and her second fastest time ever. Richards had no trouble with the field as she stuck to her now familiar race plan, blasting away around the second turn and running clear and free down the finish straight to…

Two dropped batons in Beijing lead to the categorization of the US efforts in China as a disaster and panic ensued! Not enough medals were won. The Relay Program was a waste of money and scrapped. Meetings were held. “Project 30” was written. New positions created and hires made. Then we went to Berlin and neither sprint team made the final – and adding insult to injury we won one fewer medal than in Beijing! But THIS time we’re told we’re on the right track! No worries, just misfortune on the relay front. Missed it by “that much” as Maxwell Smart would have said! I’m sorry, but the responses I’ve…

With the season winding down, we have just a handful of meets left to the season. The best of the past few days have been Zurich and Gateshead. And clearly the level of competition in Berlin has taken a toll on the athletes as the level of results has dropped dramatically. All save for one Yelena Isinbayeva who clearly had something to prove after her performance in Berlin. An overwhelming favorite in Berlin who went home with nothing, Isinbayeva came to Zurich and merely set a new WR clearing 5.06m (16’9″)! And finally getting the monkey off her back has seemed to do wonders for Sanya Richards as she continued…