The hottest sprinting of the weekend was not in the Doha Diamond league event on Friday, but at the Jamaican Invitational in Kingston on Saturday. Given the results in Kingston and the talk earlier in the week about the meets being scheduled too close together, you can bet that somebody will have a different place on the schedule next year.

But another time to talk about the scheduling woes of the sport. Jamaica is about sprinting, and Jamaica’s best stayed home for the weekend to ply their wares on the newly laid track at National Stadium. And the results on the track were pretty impressive.

Carmelita Jeter (USA) got the track hot by scorching the track for a new world leader in the 100 with her 10.86 (+1.9). Excellent sprinting for any time of the year, let alone early May. It seems she may be on her way back to the 10.6x zone. It’s still very early in the season, but she’s moving into a favorites position unless others begin to step up soon. Here her closest competitor was Kelly Ann Baptiste (TRI) in 10.94. Beijing co-silver medalists Sherone Simpson (JAM) and Kerron Stewart (JAM) were well back as both ran 11.07.

Jeter’s win was the only victory to break up the Jamaican sprint party on this day however, as immediately following in the men’s race Yohan Blake controlled things handily with a 9.80 (+2.2) victory. Slightly windy, but still impressive. He too was well up on second place as Daniel Bailey (ANT) was well back in 9.94, just ahead of Michael Rodgers (USA) 9.96. With 9.89/19.78 credentials last year, Blake’s race here confirms that he is a serious threat to make the Jamaican team for Doha in both sprints – and a threat for both finals.

Jamaica repeated it’s winning ways in the 200. First in the women’s race with Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce moving up from the 100 (Olympic and World champion in ‘08/’09) and blazed the turn on her way to a 22.10 (+2.4) victory. While the wind negated the legality of the race, the fact that second place was held by Veronica Campbell Brown (JAM, 22.37), the ‘04 & ‘08 Olympic champion, makes Fraser Pryce a potential threat here as well. As this race certainly marked her as someone to watch in this event.

The men’s race gave us yet another sprinter to watch this year as Nickel Ashmeade (JAM) moved from promising youngster to accomplished sprinter as he became the newest member of the sub 20 club with his 19.95 (+1.6) win. The victory gave him the world lead, and broke the stadium record set by Tyson Gay in 2007 (19.97). His win came against some big names in the sport with yearly 100 leader Steve Mullings (JAM, 20.15), World and Olympic medalist Wallace Spearmon (USA, 20.16), and last year’s 100 co-leader Nesta Carter (JAM, 20.25) all some distance behind. The race saw one time 100 WR holder Asafa Powell (JAM) in 8th place as Jamaican youth were on display on this day.

It’s still very early in the season, and one can only imagine what we will see when Bolt and Gay finally take to the track, but I think it is safe to say that the sprints are going to command center stage this year – and the rivalry between the US and Jamaica just had more logs thrown onto the fire! Anyone wanting to be in the mix this year is going to have to bring his AND her “A” game!

And I can’t go without mentioning another world leader from Kenia Sinclair (JAM) as she outran Phoebe Wright (USA) in the 800 1:58.41 to 1:59.98 in a replay of their anchor legs at Penn. Jamaica may be sprint happy (and with good reason) but Sinclair could bring home a middle distance medal in Doha. And it’s nice to see Phoebe under 2:00 so early in the season.

Today belonged to Jamaica, however, as they feasted on home cooking. For full meet results click here. The weekend isn’t over and there are still more results to come in. But it’s going to take some to top the sprinting that took place in Kingston.

Once again we’ve started the Diamond League without a matchup of any of the true stars of the sport. Doha produced many of the world’s top marks – but that is to be expected when you begin to get the world’s truly elite athletes on the track. We will see wholesale revisions of the yearly performance lists on a weekly basis now that the “best” are performing Read More...

Yes, you read the headline correctly. The head of the IAAF, the global governing body for track and field provided the following quote during an interview which can be read here. The quote made while discussing head to head meetings:“"It will be more difficult this year," Diack said, adding that it would not be realistic, for instance, to foresee to see three or four meetings between Gay and Bolt Read More...

The pro season will get started in earnest Friday in Doha, Qatar. Judging from the lineup for the meet, and the large number of top level athletes on tap, the pros will be using the Diamond League to get paid while they prepare for Worlds. We may not see them all at the same time, or get the head to head “showdowns” that we want, but it looks like the Road to Daegu will run down the middle of the Diamond League Read More...

For most of the early season I’ve talked about the speed events and the collegians, because they’ve been the one’s making most of the noise. I’ve been waiting for the distance runners to join the fray – if for no other reason than I feel like we really have a chance to compete against the rest of the world Read More...

A packed stadium. Raucous crowd. Yelling, screaming, clapping, chanting, This is track & field at its best. This is what we get annually at Penn! As other meets have either died or struggle to attract fans, Penn fills the seats every year – for FOUR DAYS! They say a meet shouldn’t last more than a couple of hours – you can’t prove it by Penn! They say you need to have a featured race run down the middle of Main Street to attract fans – you can’t prove it by Penn! They say you need World Record attempts to get the public to show up – you can’t prove it by Penn! Penn presents track & field the good old fashioned way – great athletes, great competition, rivalries and relays – and it WORKS year after year! They get the best east coast high schoolers for the “local” fans and import Jamaican and west coast high school relay teams Read More...

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...