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Saturday, A Day of Track and Field
In the year 2014 we finally got what I’ve always known TV could give us - a full day of track & field! The thought of watching track all day on television has been a dream of mine forever.There is an old saying however, be careful what you ask for, you might it. and my day of sitting in the comfort of my home watching track and field had it’s moments. Starting with the "venerable" Penn Relays. I know that the "concept" of "The USA v The World" creates an aura of excitement for Penn and sells tickets, but this year’s squads were really lacking in star power and truly…
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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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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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Rollins’ 12.26 Leads Weekend at Nationals
As I thought prior, this was one of the hottest National Championships in a long time – and it was lead by women and youth. Don’t get me wrong, the men got the job done and we’re sending a nice male squad to Moscow. But the women were doing spectacular things everywhere you turned – and none were any more spectacular than Brianna Rollins. Rollins started looking like gold at the NCAA Championships when she screamed collegiate records of 12.47 & 12.39 – but that was just a warm up for Des Moines. This weekend saw her run 12.33w, 12.30w before blazing 12.26 (1.2) in the final for a new…
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NCAA to USATF Who Will Perform Best?
With the NCAA Championships behind them the collegiate stars are at one of the toughest parts of the season - trying to be even better in an attempt to make the World Championships team. After weeks of conference, regional and of course the NCAA Championships, they must try to hit yet another peak against the best the US has to offer. Depending on your event that task could be nearly impossible with some events in the US being as deep as at Worlds. Even so, I did come up with ten collegiate athletes that I feel have a pretty solid shot at earning air fair to Russia. Especially on the…
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NCAA Championships – Great Competition
This is one of the meets that I really look forward to each year, because it’s everything that the sport should be. A meet that contests EVERY event. It has relays. The best show up to compete. There’s team scoring. And most of all, the competition is fierce! Yes, the NCAA Championships should be the poster child for track and field. The meet that doesn’t need stars because it creates its own stories and stars – and this year’s version will go down as one of the best ever, because it had all these things in copious amounts! The semis gave an indication that we were going to be in…
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Collegiate Champs Send Us Outdoors in Style
This weekend saw us "spring forward" into Daylight Savings Time, which means more hours to train as athletes transition from the indoor season to the outdoor season. For several college athletes their final competition of the winter was this weekend’s NCAA Championships which featured several outstanding athletes and performances. Below are my highlights from the meet, but before I get to that I have to comment on the 200 meters. This race is one of my favorite events outdoors, but it loses much in the transition from outdoors to indoors – and this meet demonstrated why. For starters, on the one lap banked tracks lane draw is EVERYTHING in the…
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They’re Off & Running
For those fans of the sport that have been waiting for the action of track and field THIS was your weekend! Lots of meets with tons of action. Especially on the collegiate scene , where all the major players were in action including Florida, Oregon, Texas A&M, Florida State , Arkansas and LSU among others. Below are my highlights from the weekend – those results I personally found most interesting. Early results are heavy on the short distances as usual, with a collegiate hurdle record being turned in by Clemson’s Brianna Rollins. Galen Rupp turned in a very nice mile however, making it look easy! And Casmir Loxsom blazed over…
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Richards Ross Highlights Weekend of Speed
Speed was on display this past weekend and nowhere was it more prominent than the speedy state of Texas and the annual Texas Relays. The first sign that things were going to be fast came in the qualifying rounds of the University 4×1 when Auburn scorched the track for a 38.95 in their heat. That’s the kind of time one expects to see collegiate teams run in the semis or final of the NCAA Championships, not an opening round of the Texas Relays – one of the first runs for college teams of the season. They proved that was no fluke however, as they flew to a WL 38.30 in…