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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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Rupp (3:50.93) & Cain (4:32.78) HOT!
The Olympic year might be behind us, but it’s clear that winning at World’s means something too, because those athletes that are competing indoors are crankin out the marks. This weekend the mile was the star of the show, with the 600 making noise as well. And I must say that the internet played one of it’s greatest supporting rolls to date as those of us on Twitter were able to follow both Galen Rupp and Mary Cain and their fabulous mile runs simultaneously! Rupp showed tremendous extended range in the mold of the East Africans as he dropped his mile PR down to 3:50.93 to go with his 10000…
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Trials Day 4 – Half Way to London
Heading into the midway break, Monday was the first really "quiet" day of the Trials. But then, how do you compete for headlines with Eaton’s WR, Dead Heat Gate, and the returns of Justin Gatlin & Tyson Gay? After all that excitement Monday was rather tame. With most of the London berths in the day’s field event finals already decided based on limited numbers of individuals with "A" standards, the"drama" for the day was produced by the two 800 finals. Alysia Montano took the guess work out of who would win the women’s race as she went immediately to the front; opened up a sizeable lead; and cruised home to…
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Trials Preview – Women’s 200 Meters
While the men’s 100 is potentially the most “story” laden event heading into the Trials, it’s certainly not alone in terms of story lines and depth. One of my favorites in this regard is the women’s 1500, which I discussed in detail earlier. However, also recently entering into the “drama zone” with the aforementioned 100 & 1500 is the women’s 200 as it’s suddenly become the middle ground for several of our best female sprinters. Let’s start with the woman for whom this distance is her specialty – Allyson Felix. Felix won three World titles in a row in this event (’05, ’07, ’09) before taking bronze in Daegu last…
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8 Must See Trials Events
I’m getting antsy, it’s Friday night and no big results can be found – everything major will be happening Saturday. So my mind is wandering in the direction of the Trials. After all, once the smoke clears everything comes down to two meets this year – National Trials and the Olympic Games.In some countries the Trials may be the years most important meet, beside if you don’t get past the Trials you’ll never see the Games – at least not from the stadium in London. So I’m anticipating the Trials almost as much as the Games. With everything on the line and great depth in several events, the US Trials…
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Blake 9.90 Leads Weekend Activities
Rivalries are GREAT for the sport of track and field. I just can’t say that enough. Athletes seem to compete better when they have a chip on their shoulder; something to prove; a score to settle; or sometimes just plain don’t like each other. Ovett v Coe. Nehemiah v Foster. Greene v Montgomery. Lewis v Everybody. Rivalries bring out outstanding competition – and as much as we tout times, distances and heights in this sport, it’s competition that truly rules. I start with this because among the top rivalries in sport today is the one on the island of Jamaica between the Racers and MVP track clubs. A rivalry that…
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2012 Outdoor Preview – Sprints
Now that we’re completely done with the indoor season, it’s time to start taking a look at how this outdoor season might possibly shape up. More importantly, at how the Games might shape up. So as I go through the various events on the Olympic slate, I’m going to try and Identify those individuals that I feel as of today ill be in the mix – the contenders and potential contenders. I’m going to start with the sprints because they tend to get going a bit earlier than other events. And this time around they’re already pretty well defined, as we have a large group of veterans that “should” be…
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2011 in Review – Women’s 200 Meters
As with the men’s event, the women’s deuce suffers from a lack of real competition among it’s best competitors – possibly even more so. Ninety three times women have broken the 22 second barrier with legal wind – none did so in 2011. As a matter of fact, there have only been nine such marks in the New Millennium! None at all in ’01, ’02, ’03, ’04, ’05, ’06 and this year. Compare that to the twenty eight marks under 11 seconds that were churned out in 2011, and we have an event that is sorely underdeveloped – crying out for someone to just take it over! This year didn’t…
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American Women Leading the Way to London
As we close to door on the 2011season all was not bleak for the U.S. on the track. While our men had their difficulties and many lament that the rest of the world has “caught up” to us; the distaff side of things did remarkably well. From the 100 through the 1500, including the relay and hurdle events – U.S. women were on or very near the podium. In some cases “catching up” to the rest of the world! Following the Beijing Games, many were ready to concede sprint supremacy and dominance to Jamaica. After a Jamaican sweep of the 100, another 200 win by Valerie Campbell Brown over Felix,…