{"id":499,"date":"2011-06-10T11:06:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T18:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=499"},"modified":"2011-06-10T11:06:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-10T18:06:00","slug":"bolt-wins-oslo-lightning-delays-ncaas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=499","title":{"rendered":"Bolt Wins Oslo, Lightning Delays NCAA\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thursday was the \u201clull\u201d day in this weeks track and field action. In a week sandwiched between the awesome Pre Classic and will end with NCAA finals and what is promising to be an exciting meet in New York, yesterday was rather lacking. <\/p>\n

We did get Usain Bolt\u2019s seasonal 200 debut in Oslo \u2013 a race he won in 19.86 to take the world lead. But the time was only slightly better than countryman Nickel Ashmeade\u2019s previous WL (19.95), and the field he competed against was less than stellar with Saidy Ndure (NOR, 20.43), Mario Forsythe (JAM, 20.49) running times that wouldn\u2019t have won NCAA qualifying heats in Des Moines. Which sort of sums up the Oslo leg of the Diamond League \u2013 less than stellar. <\/p>\n

The days best event was the women\u2019s 5000 \u2013 aptly called the Grete Waitz Memorial. Any time you have Meseret Defar (ETH) in a race you know it\u2019s going to be quick, and this one was as she won in 14:37.32 leading a deep and fast finish where nine women broke 15 minutes. Giving it a run as the best event of the meet was the women\u2019s 800 where Halima Hachlaf (MOR) outkicked an outstanding field to win in a world leading 1:58.27 with Mariya Savinova (RUS, 1:58.44) and Caster Semenya (RSA, 1:58.61) right behind \u2013 in a field where 8th place went in 1:59.97! <\/p>\n

As with Bolt\u2019s 200 win, there were a few other notable individual results, such as Amantle Montsho\u2019s (BOT ) 400 win (50.10) and Paul Koech\u2019s (KEN) Steeple win (8:01.83, WL) but overall the fields were just not up to Oslo, and what should be Diamond League, standards \u2013 similar to what happened last year with New York following a few days after Rome. As I stated last year, the Diamond League has to be more careful in scheduling it\u2019s meets here in the US in conjunction with those in Europe. Only leaving a few days for travel and acclimation just doesn\u2019t seem to fit with the elite athlete\u2019s schedules.<\/p>\n

Speaking of schedules, the NCAA has had to alter the schedule for today because of Lightning in Des Moines yesterday. An exciting long jump final had to be stopped midway as did the decathlon, and the 4 x 400 relay qualifying. A shame as the long jumpers were on an awesome roll with Makusha (FlSt, 27\u2019 5.75\u201d), Forbes (LSU, 27\u2019 0\u201d) and Claye (26\u2019 11) headed towards their final jumps.<\/p>\n

Time for the finals! With the NCAA finals on tap AND New York tomorrow, the next two days should see some HOT action!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday was the \u201clull\u201d day in this weeks track and field action. In a week sandwiched between the awesome Pre Classic and will end with NCAA finals and what is promising to be an exciting meet in New York, yesterday was rather lacking. We did get Usain Bolt\u2019s seasonal 200 debut in Oslo \u2013 a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa3DCY-83","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}