While the short sprints have been on fire since 2008, the 400 has struggled a bit. The previous two men's Olympic champions - and sub 44 performers - have suffered injuries at the wrong times. While several emerging stars have been up and down, and injury prone. on the women's side, we seem to have difficulty getting out of the 49 second zone - a barrier broken back in 1976! There was good news on the men's side in 2012 however, as we saw the first non American run under 44 Read More...
The CHill Zone of T&F: Conway's View From the Finish Line
2012 200 Meter Rankings–men/women
Dec 22nd, 2012
5:01 pm PST
5:01 pm PST
The 200 meters belongs to the United States and Jamaica. That's the conclusion one must come to when looking at this year's results on both the men's and women's sides. Yes, others are on the track, and even occasionally make an appearance in the 3rd or 4th position, but reality is that in spite of the lack of focus on the event outside of major championships, this event is undergoing major change and only two nations are keeping pace Read More...
2012 100m Rankings for 2012 – Men/Women
Dec 12th, 2012
11:28 am PST
11:28 am PST
I’m going to try something different this year, in that I’m going to go five deep for events as I rank them and present both the men & women simultaneously. Five Deep because in general that’s really where the top athletes are in any given event. After that things usually get rather fuzzy. And since the lists will only be five deep, it should make for more interesting reading to include both genders at the same time – essentially presenting a top ten athletes for each event Read More...
My #1’s for the 2012 Season
Dec 9th, 2012
5:49 pm PST
5:49 pm PST
Now that I've thrown some parameters out there regarding ranking athletes, let's get on with it. After all, December has snuck up on us rather suddenly. I've already detailed my Athletes of the Year and Performances of the Year, now it's time to list my #1's by event. I will follow that up with some individual event rankings - I'm thinking five deep Read More...
How Should We Judge Performances?
Dec 4th, 2012
6:16 pm PST
6:16 pm PST
Regarding the rubric I presented for assessing how I personally rank athletes, one reader brought up a very good point / issue. That being, how do we determine outstanding performance for athletes where the "bar" was previously set by an enhanced, or thought to have been enhanced athlete? A question that in some ways goes to the very heart of the sport, because the issue of drug use permeated the news for much of the 2000's Read More...
How Do We Rank Track & Field’s Athletes?…
Dec 1st, 2012
9:01 am PST
9:01 am PST
As I said previously it's that time of year - awards / ranking season. And as tends to happen, the first set of awards on the table have already stoked the fires of debate - and that's a good thing. Can never have enough conversation about track and field! So while we're talking, I thought it might be a good time to define what we're talking about Read More...