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Continental Cup Review
After watching the Continental Cup this weekend, I am more convinced than ever that it’s time to move on with something else. Watching the meet the stands were very sparsely populated, and the sport had to have lost money on the event if attendance is any indication. Probably because it’s just difficult for paying patrons to get behind what is supposed to be a championship level event that is missing so many championship level athletes. And while I love the idea of bringing more of a team aspect to the sport, continental teams are just too broad for most people to truly feel connected with. Especially when the teams are…
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World Cup, Continental Cup, How About Another Worlds?
This weekend will see the first rendition of the “Continental Cup”, which is simply a reworked version of the “World Cup”. At the time of it’s inception in 1977, the World Cup was a welcome sight on the track and field scene. After all, we only had one real championship of any kind on a global level – that being the quadrennial Olympic Games. And with only one championships every four years, the track and field community was starving for something that could be called a “Championship”. So the World Cup was the first institution to fill that void. At the time the concept/format made sense. There were basically two…
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How Do the Current Sprinters Rank
As is typical, there has been a lot of action in the men’s 100 meters this off season. Lots of PR’s and, with the exception of history’s three fastest on the clock, quite a few head to heads. The big race for many being this year’s Rieti meet where nearly everyone set a PR or seasonal best. So heading into the next trifecta of Major championships, just where do the sprinters sit with respect to each other? Well, as with the short relay, talk is already heating up regarding this topic, so I thought I would take my own shot at “ranking” the world’s current crop of sprinters. Plus, it…
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Relay Chat in the Aftermath of the Zurich 37.45
Ahh the discussion about relays. Doesn’t matter who is in the race, relays always elicit a lot of conversation. Which is why they should be on meet schedules far more often than they are! Take the recent Weltklasse meet in Zurich. The US team in the race came away with a 37.45 – the 5th fastest time ever and #2 time for an American squad. Since then message board speculators have gone nuts – because, according to general message board logic, the assumption is that if that squad could run 37.45 then Jamaica has to be able to run much faster! So with each passing race and PR by an…