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First Stop Women’s 100
And we’re off and running, literally. As the first few rounds of events have taken place and we’ve had our first couple of finals. The first actual final was themes 10,000 meters. Won by Ethiopian Selemon Barega. An interesting race given the heat and humidity as it turned into a wait and kick affair. That which hurts the distance runners however, tends to be good for sprinters and hurdlers. And so far, the conditions and the track have been to the liking of both sprinters and hurdlers. That was clearly evident as the top women’s 400 hurdlers – Sydney McLaughlin, Femke Bol and Delilah Muhammad – seemed to “stroll” the…
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The Games Have Arrived!
It’s here. The Tokyo Olympic Games have finally arrived.We’ve had several sports already take place, and now it’s time for the heart of the Olympics, Track and Field, to take to the stage! The world has been waiting for five years, half a decade, for the next week and a half. And while there have been World Championships and other championship meets that have taken place in the time in between, for track and field the Olympics are IT!. It’s the one time every four years that the world actually pays attention to this sport. Many people don’t know that for most of his career, Usain Bolt rarely competed –…
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How Will London’s Defending Champions Fare?
Heading into Rio will be several individuals that closed the deal and won gold in London. It’s been four long years since the national anthem played for these individuals. They will come to Rio 26th dreams of repeating that success. Who will be able to close the deal again four years later? Here’s my guess at how these London champions will do in Rio. Women’s 100 – Shelley Ann Fraser Pryce Fraser Pryce has had her way in the last TWO Olympic Games. Twice she’s parlayed her blazing start into easy gold medal runs. This year however, she enters Rio as a decided underdog. Injury has slowed her training,…
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Prefontaine was HOT!
Once again Pre was as good a meet as any on the planet. Which begs the question, why can’t we do this more often? It’s a rhetorical question of course, because the simple answer is MONEY! It takes a boat load of money to put on a quality meet these days, and who has that kind of money laying around? Yes, Eugene touts itself as "Track Town USA", but let’s be real – it’s in Nike’s back yard! Nuff said. I’ve said for years that the answer to track and field’s "issues" with attendance is not tied to street races, concerts, or pole vaulting in the parking lot. The answer…
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World Championships Review, Individuals Pt 2
Time to finish up my thoughts on the individual performances from the World Championships. As this was not one of my favorite Worlds, for reasons already discussed, there were more performances that I was disappointed in than those I was ecstatic about. So many that as I started writing this I had to edit down to a reasonable number. After all the entire meet wasn’t quite a disappointment. So, while I was disappointed in the time for the men’s 4×4 for example, it’s not listed. Nor are other events where I simply was down on the performances. I tried to keep my “disappointment” to the way the athletes performed. I’ve…
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World Championships Review–Individuals Pt1
Now for the fun part, looking at individual performances – and there were certainly some very good ones. First however, let’s get a bit of perspective by taking a look at medal counts. The double digit medal earners: United States 25 total, 6 gold, 14 silver, 5 bronze. Russia 17 total, 7 gold, 4 silver, 6 bronze Kenya 12 total, 5 gold, 4 silver, 3 bronze Ethiopia 10 total, 3 gold, 3 silver, 4 bronze As expected Russians performed well at home. While traditional European power Germany continues to have difficulty getting back to Eastern Bloc prominence. In general there was no core of dominant nations, but a relatively even…
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Prefontaine – Post Meet Thoughts
Ok people, like Christmas the Prefontaine Classic has come and gone – and just like Christmas I find myself the day after trying to figure out how it compares to meets past. It’s not a question of whether or not I liked the meet. It was track and field, of course I liked it. The question is to what degree was my appetite for the sport satiated? Perhaps because of the discussion about the sport in general over the past week I may be a bit more "critical" than usual, but I found the meet to be "just ok" for me. Somehow the "Wow" factor was missing. You may or…
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Kirani James’ 44.02 Highlights Shanghai DL
Perhaps Doha raised the bar a bit high, but I didn’t come away from Shanghai with the same WOW factor that I had following the Diamond League opener. A nice set of marks were turned in, but that special something was missing in most of the events on the track. One running event that hit on all cylinders however, was the men’s 400 as both LaShawn Merritt and Kirani James showed up to compete. Both men took it out down the backstretch and add they headed around the second bend, James began to seriously work, emerging with a slight lead that he increased with each stride up the straight, and…
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Shanghai Preview
It’s time for the second installment of the Diamond League, and if Doha was any indication of how the year is going to go then Shanghai should be a real humdinger! Looking at the start lists, things should once again be exiting from start to finish. As usual however, there are some events that I am especially looking forward to: Men’s 110 Hurdles Aries Merritt, David Oliver, Jason Richardson This is one of those wonderful events where the best compete head to head quite often – and the anticipation never drops. That said, this trio could end up being the threesome that represents the US in Moscow, and Shanghai…
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Doha DL, Let’s Get Ready to Rumble
OK, now that we’ve had our first sub10 of the year, it finally feels like track season. And right on time we get the first of the Diamond League meets in Doha on Friday, which means a lot more elite athletes should be competing. While I have many issues with the way the DL has been set up – chief among them the lack of promised head to heads with the upper tier elite sprinters – this series of meets does run through some of the sport’s best venues. Which combined with the elite athletes that do show up at each meet is enough to ensure that we get some…