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My NCAA Championships Favorites
Wow, we’re in the middle of what will be the hottest week of elite track and field this side of the Trials and Games and I nearly forgot that the NCAA Championships are also this week! So this week we get treated to Oslo, New York, the NCAA’s and I’ll throw in the Golden West Invitational out here on the West Coast for high school fans. This is going to be one hot weekend! It’s really hard to handicap the NCAA meet because they don’t have a lot of dual meets to gauge competitiveness and the Regional meets are merely the heats and quarterfinals for the championship meet. NO finals,…
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Pre–Outstanding Results, Lots of Questions
Trying to put something together on this meet has been giving me fits. Once again the Pre Classic was the best non championship meet on US soil. From the distance races Friday night (streamed live thank you) to the Bowerman Mile that closed out the NBC broadcast, the fields were top notch across the board. And at the end of the day, the results show 10 world leading performances, led by the very deep Kenyan 10,000 meter Trials. But while the results were outstanding, in many cases they were also confusing, as favorites didn’t always perform like favorites; and American athletes often didn’t look like the Trials were a scant…
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What Happened to Track?
There is much conversation these days about the impending death of track and field, and with good reason. After all here in the US, we’ve seen a once thriving sport wither down to a handful of elite meets – with embarrassingly poor attendance, and poor television coverage. A far cry from the golden era of the sport from the 60’s thru the 80’s. That said, I’m not sure that the "panic" approach called for by some is the way to make things better. By panic approach, I refer to those that call for such drastic measures as ripping meets apart into mini meets of distance only, sprint only, throws only…