The CHill Zone of T&F

I settled down to watch the Adidas Classic yesterday. Always a great meet, this year it seemed that almost every event under 400 meters involved some issues with false starts. More irritating than the false starts themselves was the attitude of the announcers, as the First words out of the announcers mouth, repeatedly, was that we should go to a no false start rule. Which is indicative of why track and field keeps treading water in its attempt to become a major sport – we always look in the wrong direction to solve our problems in my opinion! What’s wrong with the false start rules? Well for my money there…

The Visa Championship Series always hits its stride this time of year with the trio of Carson, New York and Eugene leading into the National Championships. This year Carson will kick this stretch run off in fine style with stars galore this weekend. Previous Carson winners World Champion sprinter Tyson Gay and Olympic Champion sprinter Veronica Campbell Brown have both pulled out of the meet to spend a bit more time training and rehabbing from early season injuries, yet their absence should go unnoticed so deep is the quality of this year’s meet. Potential Highlights: Men’s 100 – The field includes the Olympic silver medalist (Richard Thompson) the most recent…

The road to the NCAA Championship shifts into high gear this weekend as conference championships abound. The hottest meet should be the SEC Championships in Gainesville with Florida, Arkansas, LSU, and South Carolina competing, as all should play a roll in the National meet come June. The Pac10 meet won’t be as deep but will feature the Oregon Ducks who should be in the thick of the National championship race. And in the mid west the Big12 will feature the Texas AM Aggies, another national contender. Athletes to watch include: Trindon Holliday – LSU – Trindon currently leads the collegiates in the 100 meters at 10.12. He is the most…

In Lashawn Merritt’s recent entry on his IAAF diary he outlined his upcoming schedule: • 200 this weekend at the Adidas Classic• 400 at the Reebok Grand Prix• 300 at the Prefontaine Classic• 400 at Nationals Knowing what Merritt was running I took a look at Jeremy Wariner’s website to find out when we would get our first match up between the two. According to the schedule on Jeremy’s site his upcoming meets will be: • 400 at the Adidas Track Classic• 200 at Nationals Which would mean that we won’t see these two compete against each other until perhaps some time in Europe! Currently Merritt leads the world in…

Scanning through some meets there are more very good results from this weekend. At the Georgia Invitational, long jumper Dwight Phillips set a new PR in the 100 meters with an excellent 10.06 (+2.0). Should bode very well for his long jumping this year. Later in the meet, 100 meter man Derrick Atkins (BAH), World Silver medalist in ’07, moved up to the 200 and set a PR of 20.35 (+1.5). Atkins has been running a steady diet of 200’s this spring, which should help his 100 – though he already had a strong finish. At the Oxy Invitational in Southern California, long hurdler Felix Sanchez ran the open 400…

High Schoolers really kicked into gear this weekend as State Meets were run in some states and qualifying began in others. In Georgia, Stephen Hill (Miller Grove) jumped a nation leading 25′ 8.75″ in the long jump. Seven jumpers in all went over 24′ in various divisions. Jumping was good in in the high jump too as David Smith (Love Joy) cleared 7′ 2″ In the high jump. In Florida Dentarius Locke screamed a sprint double of 10.32/20.70w and had a legal 200 of 20.58 (National Leader) in the prelims. His time broke state meet records of Jeff Demps (100) and Walter Dix (200). Colorado pole vaulter Chase Cooper (Smoky…

Tough to follow yesterday’s Doha meet, but that was the position the Osaka Grand Prix was in this morning (at least this morning my time). Osaka had decent performances but only two one lap races stood out – Jeremy Wariner’s 44.69 win in the open 400 and Kerron Clement’s 48.60 win over the hurdles. Both efforts put them in the #2 position on the yearly list for the season, and Wariner’s mark made him only the second person under the 45 sec barrier this season. Update from Doha: The times I reported yesterday from the men’s 100 were from the heats. A final was run later in the day and…

Today’s meet in Doha got the weekend rolling like few meets do during the course of a season as 13 seasons bests were set in various events all over the stadium! Where to begin? Well Kerron Stewart (JAM) demolished the women’s 100 field in 10.93 (+1.3) but was just short of her own yearly leading mark (10.92). Second place was a far back Stephanie Durst (US) in 11.15. Similar story in the men’s 100 where Travis Padgett (US) blitzed a nice 10.04 (+1.4) with second place well back in 11.14 (Michael Frater, JAM). Padgett was just off the 10.00 yearly leader of Walter Dix (US). Those races aside, almost everything…

I know it’s early in the season. There is lots of time for athletes to rise, fall, and even rise again. Already we have seen injuries, accidents, slow starts to training and other issues that could affect the final outcome to the season – which this year is the World Championships in Berlin. But somebody has to stick their neck out at some point and start looking ahead. I figure now is as good a time as any. So, following are the 5 matchups in the sprints that I think will shape the Berlin finals. #5 – Walter Dix v Asafa Powell I’m sure that sprint fans are immediately laughing…

A press release issued today outlines a new deal between NBC and the IAAF to broadcast the World Championships in 2011, 2013 and 2015. It is an extension of the deal that NBC has to broadcast this year’s World Championships in Berlin. The agreement also includes some future telecasts of Golden League events during the same time period. On the surface this is exciting news. Just a few years ago (2003) we only had one day of Major network coverage (ABC) of the Paris World Championships – a definite travesty. By the same token, however, last year’s telecast of the Olympics by NBC was also a travesty. Promising more hours…