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What’s Next?
This is a different kind of season with the World Championships being held in the middle of July. Usually the championship meet is at the end of the season. September, maybe late August in an early year. Leaving a lot of track season out there left to be run. So, what is there to look forward to? Well, actually there’s quite a bit left. Believe it or not, there are three championship level meets left. Half of the Diamond League has yet to be run. The Puma American Track League has meets left. Plenty of competition coming up. Starting with: The Commonswealth Games. A mini version of the Olympics involving…
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It’s July Where Are We?
This has been a very interesting year so far. Lots of transition going on throughout the sport. Rising athletes. Injured athletes. Athletes returning from injury. More transition than usual in the year following the Games it seems. Then of course there are the usual off the track issues such as drugs, which never seem to go away. So many things that I don’t know where to begin, so rather than say a lot about one thing, today I’m going to take a stab at saying a little about a lot of things – starting with the Diamond League which gives us a Fourth of July meet in Lausanne in two…
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Aries Merritt Near Flawless in 12.80!
Perfection. That’s what I thought of when I would watch Renaldo “Skeets” Nehemiah run the hurdles. Solid out of the blocks. Nerves of steel. barely gliding over the tops of the hurdles. Winning comfortably against the best competition the world had to offer. Back in the day that was Greg Foster, and Skeets was good enough that in his final WR run of 12.93 Foster finished 2nd in 13.03 – at the time making Foster the #2 hurdler of all time with the #3 time. Today, perfection has a new name as Aries Merritt ran his EIGHTH consecutive sub13 to set all kinds of records. First of all it wasn’t…
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Brussels Has Some Good Match Ups
The second half of the Diamond League final in Brussels offers the best opportunity to see some final match ups before the season comes to an end. As I look at the provisional start lists there should be some exciting head to heads. Let’s start with the men’s 200 where we get a final look at Yohan Blake – on the track where he dropped his 19.26 and became a household name. It would have been nice to see him and Bolt go head to head here – hint hint. Instead we get to see him against Christophe Lemaitre, Warren Weir, and Jason Young and reserve ourselves to comparing his…
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Drizzle Fizzle and Sizzle in Zurich
Zurich has traditionally been one of my favorite meets over the years. Mostly because, even before there was a Diamond League (or Golden League) Zurich has always attracted the world’s top sprinters – and this year was no exception. Don’t get me wrong, Zurich is annually one of the world’s best meets overall with high level fields in all of their events, but the sprints have always been special in Zurich. Today however, after watching this meet I’m left with a bag of mixed feelings labeled drizzle, fizzle and sizzle. The drizzle is from the rain that feel during the meet. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a year…
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Diamond League Ready to Wind Down
The year’s big event is over, and now the season’s big series is about to wind down. The Diamond League v blouses tomorrow and next week with meets in Zurich and Brussels. In the chase for Diamond League points and bonus money, these two competitions will offer some of the last opportunities to see big names and big match ups for the season – and Zurich has some good ones. Take the men’s 400 hurdles where five of the year’s six sub 48 hurdlers will be going toe to toe: Felix Sanchez, Angelo Taylor, Javier Culson, Jehue Gordon and Michael Tinsley. Taylor is fresh off a season’s best in the…
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Blake Jumps Starts the Weekend in Lausanne
Well, I said the Lausanne start list had an Olympic feel to it and several athletes showed that they were still in Olympic form. In a meet with several Olympic caliber performances the best was turned in by Yohan Blake (JAM) who nailed the start and never looked back in the 100 meters, stopping the clock at 9.69 – making him the =#2 performer all time with the =#3 performance. The man he tied with for #2 performer, Tyson Gay (USA), was second in this race at 9.83 – maintaining his streak of 9.8’s on the season but not yet dipping below that 9.80 level. Blake meanwhile joined Usain Bolt…
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Lausanne & Birmingham Lead Big Weekend
If you’re like me, you got spoiled during the Olympics with high level track and field every day for over a week. Things settled down quite a bit last week in Stockholm as many of London’s stars took time out to catch their breath and rest a bit. Well, they didn’t get paid in London, as many of the athletes pointed out, so it’s back to the Circuit to collect checks. And that means a big weekend of track and field as a host of the sports top athletes will be in Lausanne and Birmingham producing some of the best matchups outside of the Olympic Games. Things get started on…
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Doha Should Start the DL Off With a Bang
Kingston was pretty hot, and over the last few weeks we’ve had bits and pieces of high quality action in various meets – like Mt SAC, Penn, and Drake. But now we get to finally get the start of the Diamond League on Friday, and looking at the provisional start lists Doha is going to crank things up a couple notches! With the relay season history, the Diamond League is the next "phase" of competition on the road to London – and with Doha sporting some of the best fields I’ve seen outside of the DL "finals" it looks like the Diamond League may finally begin to deliver on its…
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Is There a Benefit to the U.S. being in the Diamond League?
I ask this question because last week the Diamond League schedule was released and once again it looks like the New York and Eugene meets received less than preferential treatment. First let’s look at the scheduling aspect. The Prefontaine Classic (Eugene) is scheduled for June 2nd – two days after the Rome meet on May 31st. Similarly the Adidas/New York is scheduled for Jun 9th– two days after Oslo’s Bislett Games! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out a couple of things real quickly. The first is that the athletes will have a very clear choice to make – to compete in Europe, or to cross the ocean…