One of the highlights of the Penn Relays is the “USA vs. The World” segment of relays – 4x1, 4x4, 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 Read More...

It was a windy holiday weekend across much of the U.S. as report after report on most of this weekend’s meets referenced the wind and weather as a factor – keeping most performances to average at best. I watched the ACC Championships online, and certainly the weather played havoc for much of the meet as rain poured and the wind blew and the results were less than stellar the first couple of days Read More...

The results of the Boston Marathon are in, and tremendous results they were with Geoffrey Mutai (2:03:02, KEN) and Moses Mosop (2:03:06, KEN) running the two fastest times ever! Two others ran under 2:05:00, with Ryan Hall’s 2:04:58 the fastest ever run by an American. Of course the other news coming out of Boston is that the winning mark does not qualify as a world record due to the configuration of the course – point to point course with a primarily downhill slope (in spite of the dreaded “hills”) Read More...

There were lots of meets this past weekend. And as I scan through more of them, there were some performances that really need to be pointed out, because I think they are going to have an impact on the season going forward.Most impressive of the marks was a 9.90 (+2.0)/20.17w (+2.2) sprint double by Steve Mullings (JAM) at the Lacoste Invitational in Starkville MS Read More...

It was a great weekend of track and field around the globe, but it was nice to see some outstanding competition taking place in Southern California. I remember when “So Cal” had as many elite competitions as anywhere in Europe – this past weekend was a reminder for me of those days. And thanks to Runnerspace and FloTrack, I got to watch both the Mt SAC Relays and the UCLA/Oregon dual live Read More...

The level of performance of elite track and field athletes at the top end is better than ever. The all time lists are littered with athletes that are competing right now! Starting with Bolt, Gay, Jeter, Rudisha, Liu, Robles, Bekele, Isinbayeva, Vlasic, Friedrich, Walker, Demus, and so so many others Read More...

The main excitement during this portion of the track season is at the collegiate level, with conference championships on tap in about 4 weeks time and the NCAA Preliminary rounds set for May 26 – 28. Which means that action will be heating up in the collegiate ranks any minute. For Texas A&M apparently that minute was this past weekend, as both the men’s and women’s squads laid down some very quality marks at the Texas Relays Read More...

I watched both the Texas Relays and the Arcadia Invitational on my computer this weekend via live streaming. Kudos to both meets on providing this service. It made for a great weekend of track and field. As I watched both meets, however, I was taken by something that has bothered me for quite some time now – attendance Read More...

It’s relay season here in the U.S., and with the Texas Relays up this weekend and talk of some top level athletes getting together on a couple of 4x1’s, and 2011 being a World Championships season, it’s time to once again begin talking about the U.S> 4x1’s. The U.S. should be the medal count leader in Daegu,  as our troops should garner some twenty plus medals during the week of championship competition Read More...

I had expected to see a few bombs dropped by this point in the season. But aside from L.J. Van Zyl running first 47.66, then 44.86, the season has been rather somber so far. The Florida Relays had some promising entries early on – Tyson Gay in the 4x4, along with the seasonal debuts of Justin Gatlin, David Oliver and Xavier Carter Read More...