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Worlds Day 9 – Bolt & Taylor Close Out in Style
Following the semis for the men and women’s 4×1’s, the finals got underway with the men’s 5000 meters. It became yet another championship race – which means they spent some 4200 meters warming up for a showdown between kickers. What made the race exciting is that this time it was not a set up for a showdown between Kenya and Ethiopia, because the U.S. (Bernard Lagat) and Great Britain (Mo Farah) actually had athletes capable of kicking with the Africans. And kick they did with Farah outkicking the world to get Britain its first ever gold medal in the event. Lagat finished in second as for the first time since…
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Worlds Day Eight – Pearson & Bolt Shine
Friday it was the field events that were sizzling. Today that heat went back to the track as we had some stellar track performances headed by Sally Pearson and Usain Bolt who put down some outstanding times in a meet that has been devoid of fast times. It got started with the men’s 1500 meters. Once again as the gun went off for the men’s 1500 meters the runners settled into a slow pace. New Zealand’s Nick Willis towed the field through pedestrian splits of 60.02 & 2:01.71 before the Kenyans finally took over heading into the bell lap. Silas Kipligat (KEN) took off down the backstretch as he passed…
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Worlds Day Seven – The Field Stars
There were a couple of great races on the track but the real action took place on the field today. In the women’s javelin, Maria Abakumova (RUS) heaved a tremendous 71.25m/233’ 9” in the 2nd round to take a stranglehold on the competition. The mark took over the yearly lead, was a national record, and improved her #3 all time position. She passed her next throw and fouled her 4th as seemingly there would be no threat to her for gold. Then in round 5 WR holder Barboa Spotakova (CZE) sailed her spear out to 71.58m/234’ 10” to snatch the lead from Abukamova with the #3 mark of all time!…