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Here’s What Everyone is Trying to Achieve
It’s time to start laying out the upcoming Olympic season – who I feel the contenders are as we start the road to London. Before I do that however, I thought it might help if we knew what everyone was gunning for. Ultimately the goal is gold, as in gold medals in London. Short of gold everyone would like to pick up some sort of medal – silver or bronze. In order to do that you have to get into the finals, but you can’t get into the finals unless you get a spot of the team – and every nation is limited to a maximum of three athletes per…
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World Indoor Medalists and Olympic Medals
The World Indoor Championships are right around the corner – and relatively speaking so are the Olympic Games. With so many top athletes not performing indoors, focusing instead of preparing for the outdoor season and ultimately the Games, it made me wonder which was more beneficial: using the indoor season to prepare, or continuing to train through the indoor season and opening in March/April instead. Without undertaking a full scientific study on the subject, a quick and easy way to look at the matter would be to compare medalists from Indoor Worlds to those from the Olympics to see how well indoor success transferred to Olympic success. So here are…
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What Role Will Injury Play in the London Sprints?
I ask that question because with approximately six months until London, we are already talking about injuries and/or potential injuries to top level athletes – most notably Usain Bolt’s visit to a German doctor. Coming on the heels of Bolt ending his 2011 season on an injury note, this could become a significant story line as we get closer to the Games. I say “could” become significant because there is still a lot of time on the calendar before we get into the June “qualifying” period of Olympic Trials across the globe. The injury story, however, almost always plays a role on the medal stand at the Olympics. Beijing lost…
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Memories of the Games – Hart & Robinson
Between now and the start of the Games there will be quiet periods between the action. One of the things I’d like to do during the down times is share some of my memories of the Olympics. In most cases I will look at individuals or individual races, so today I’m going to start with my first major memory of the Games – Eddie Hart & Rey Robinson in Munich (’72). I started out as a sprint fan, in large part because my dad was a sprint fan, and I watched the ’68 Games with him, and there were sizzling sprints! But I remember them mostly as highlights as I…
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Who Will Emerge in 2012 – Women
Now that we’ve taken a look at the men, it’s time to do the same with the women, because there will certainly be those women that step out of the shadows to make headlines. After getting drubbed by the Eastern Bloc sprinters in ’76, Evelyn Ashford became Kryptonite to the Iron Curtain Superwomen demolishing them at the ’79 World Cup before making headlines at the ’84 Los Angeles Games. The ’88 Games in Seoul saw both Jackie Joyner Kersee and Heike Drechsler blossom, as one of the sport’s greatest rivalries was born. And the Games of 2000 saw Gabriella Szabo burst onto the scene. The question now is who will…
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Who Will Emerge in 2012 – Men
Christmas is behind us and that means the new year, and the 2012 Olympic season, is only a week away. If there is one thing that is certain about an Olympic year, it’s that there will be athletes that step out of the shadows and into the spotlight. The ’76 Games in Montreal gave us Edwin Moses. The ’92 Games of Barcelona brought us Quincy Watts and Kevin Young. 2004 was the big stage debut of Keninisa Bekele, and of course Beijing was Usain Bolt’s time to shine. You never know whose star is going to shine, but you can bet that someone unheard of, unheralded, someone that’s lost before,…
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Looking Forward to London
It’s Christmas Eve, which means we’re just a week away from the year 2012 – the year the ancient Mayans predicted the world would end. Of course we track fans know that the real excitement won’t be watching the world crumble around us, but watching the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London! So, as I prepare for the excitement of Christmas morning, I’m also starting to to look forward to the London Olympics. After all, Christmas comes once a year, but I’ve been waiting almost four years for the Olympics! and in the world of sport, NOTHING is bigger than the Olympic Games. Can you believe it’s been…
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Lee Evans to Have Brain Surgery
Scanning the internet I just came across the news that Olympic gold medalist Lee Evans is set to undergo surgery on a tumor in the pituitary gland area of his brain. While it doesn’t seem to be getting much play this is big news for the world of track and field – at least for those of us old enough to remember cinder tracks and hand timing. Evans was a member of the San Jose State track team and the Santa Clara Valley Youth Village Track Club – the precursor to clubs such as the Santa Monica Track Club (featuring Carl Lewis); H.S.I. (featuring Maurice Greene) and the Racers Track…
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Very, Very Early London Favorites
Christmas is less than a week away, and we’re within counting distance of the dropping of the ball in Times Square and the start of the New Year. So it must be time to start talking about the Olympics! Olympic talk will dominate the world of track and field in 2012 – it always does in an Olympic year. So what better way to start/instigate discussion, than to put some early predictions out there. Of course we don’t even know who will be competing in London just yet, since everyone will have a selection process of some sort to go through. So instead of saying these are my predicted “winners”,…
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Bolt Wants Four London Golds – But are Any Certain?
Usain Bolt stated recentlythat he now wants to add the 4×4 relay to his repertoire in an attempt to go for four gold medals at the London Olympic Games. The last time we saw a four medal haul at the Olympic Games was by Carl Lewis in 1984 – before that it was Jesse Owens in 1936. So it is indeed a very rare occurrence – one that requires both dominance over one’s opponents as well as a bit of luck and good fortune. Owens was one of the most dominant athletes of his day. But in fairness to the competition, Ralph Metcalf didn’t run his best 100 in Berlin,…