here<\/a>. This next week will be a busy one with meets in Berlin, Rieti and Roverto before the Diamond League concludes in Brussels on Friday. Between now and then I will be taking a few more looks at some of the happenings from Daegu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the recurring themes of the recently completed World Championships was that of up and coming athletes breaking through to the big time. While it was clear in Zurich that it\u2019s time for the season to end as many athletes are now weary, several of the upstarts in Daegu are clearly out to prove that their performances in Daegu were no flukes. Take the men\u2019s 100 for example. Yohan Blake (JAM) became the youngest ever World champion, yet it rang a bit hollow as Usain Bolt (JAM) false started out, Tyson Gay (USA) was at home recuperating, and Asafa Powell (JAM) pulled out of the meet with a groin problem. In Zurich Blake and fellow medalists Walter Dix (USA) and Kim Collins (SKN) got to face \u201909 bronze medalist Powell. At the gun it looked like Powell was going to run away with the race as he got his typical blitzkrieg start blowing the field away in the first 50 meters. The second 50 meters was also typical, except instead of Bolt and Gay shifting gears it was Blake as he ran past Powell to victory in a new PR of 9.82. Blake is clearly one of the elite sprinters and with this race may have become Jamaica\u2019s #2 man. It looks like Bolt and Gay may have a new threat to deal with next year. Kirani James (GRN) is another young champion that solidified his win in Daegu with a big win in Zurich as he once again took on LaShawn Merritt (USA) \u2013 and won! But this time it wasn\u2019t in 44.60 \u2013 leaving a bit of doubt as to whether or not the win may have been more a component of Merritt\u2019s \u201crustiness\u201d than to James\u2019 own ability. As they got in the blocks James himself seemed to have that on his mind. Because at the gun young Kirani was all business as he, Merritt and Jermaine Gonzalez (JAM) went sailing down the backstretch. And coming off the final bend the race looked like Merritt v Wariner of yesteryear, but it was Merritt and James that came sprinting down the final stretch \u2013 and James pulling away from Merritt in the final stretch to win in a sizzling new PR of 44.36! This kid is for real \u2013 and the look on Merritt\u2019s face post-race said so. Suddenly the London 400 is looking like it could be one of the top tickets in the stadium instead of a bunch of journeyman level athletes looking to run mid 44! And I\u2019m hoping that the IAAF does the right thing and puts Merritt on the track along with James, Gonzalez and whoever else is ready so that we leave no questions on the political table. Speaking of leaving no questions on the table, Carmelita Jeter left none as to her commitment to the 200 meters with her resounding victory in Zurich. A novelty in this race when she stepped on the track at the U.S. Trials in June, she has since run under 22.30 four times including her win today in Zurich \u2013 her third in a row over three time World Champion Allyson Felix! Once again Jeter was stellar on the turn as she came off the bend a hair in front of Felix. But instead of Felix making up ground on Jeter, the World 100 meter champion pulled away in the stretch for yet another win over the distance. And the talk heading into London will not only be about Allyson Felix and a shot at the 200\/400 double but also of Carmelita Jeter and a possible shot at the 100\/200 double. As suddenly the hottest sprint for the women is becoming the 200 meters with Felix, Jeter and Jamaica\u2019s two time defending Olympic champion Veronica Campbell Brown leading what has become one of the hottest races\/rivalries on the planet. In other action, Dayron Robles (CUB) and Jason Richardson (USA) again went 1-2 in the 110 hurdles. And with David Oliver back in third, we could be witnessing the latest changing of the guard for U.S. men in the hurdles. I know that Oliver has been struggling with some nagging injuries, but that is often how changes begin. This will be an important off season for the man that was undefeated last year in one of the events best ever seasons. Meanwhile Richardson seems to be gaining confidence by the race, and Robles too seems back to his pre injury level \u2013 Pre 2009. In the women\u2019s 800, Mariya Savinova (RUS) followed up her Daegu win with another win over what was essentially a repeat of the World Champs final. American Alysia Montano came second, as she too is beginning to look like she is finally gaining confidence in her abilities over the distance. It was another odd race for Caster Semenya (RSA) who finished well back in 5th \u2013 and I\u2019m starting to wonder about the motivation, or lack of, for this athlete. I have no question about Sally Pearson\u2019s (AUS) motivation however, as she seems dead set in every race to prove that she is indeed the best 100 meter hurdler on the planet. Once again she decimated the field \u2013 this time by .29 sec with a solid 12.52 \u2013 even though clearly the efforts in Daegu took a bit out of her. The full results for Zurich can be found here. This next week will be a busy one with meets in Berlin, Rieti and Roverto before the Diamond League concludes in Brussels on Friday. Between now and then I will be taking a few more looks at some of the happenings from Daegu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_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":[13,11,12,90,28,88,87,95,169],"class_list":["post-577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blake","tag-james","tag-jeter","tag-oliver","tag-pearson","tag-richardson","tag-robles","tag-savinova","tag-zurich"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa3DCY-9j","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":596,"url":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=596","url_meta":{"origin":577,"position":0},"title":"2011 In Review \u2013 Men\u2019s 100 Meters","author":"CHill","date":"October 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"With the general rankings out of the way, it\u2019s time to start taking a look at individual events. So twixt now and the end of the year, I will look back on several events in between other news and events that come up. I will start with the men\u2019s 100\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"100\"","block_context":{"text":"100","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?tag=100"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":384,"url":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=384","url_meta":{"origin":577,"position":1},"title":"Preview \u2013 Zurich Diamond League","author":"CHill","date":"August 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Weltklasse has been one of the world\u2019s most elite competitions as far back as I can remember \u2013 and that\u2019s a long time! Often called, \u201cThe Olympics in a Day\u201d, the Weltklasse (Zurich) is known for some of the best field\u2019s every year even before the Diamond League, or\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":576,"url":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=576","url_meta":{"origin":577,"position":2},"title":"Zurich Preview","author":"CHill","date":"September 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Zurich is once again in the position of following a global major, which means that it could serve as a \u201credemption meet\u201d for several athletes \u2013 especially since there are only a handful of meets left before the close of the 2011 season. Most top athletes tend to shut things\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Blake\"","block_context":{"text":"Blake","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?tag=blake"},"img":{"alt_text":"image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh4.ggpht.com\/-nWnSYOKgluQ\/TmjGGaVSVqI\/AAAAAAAAAds\/ap1KwnvIJMU\/image_thumb%25255B1%25255D.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":593,"url":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=593","url_meta":{"origin":577,"position":3},"title":"My 2011 #1\u2019s Rankers by Event","author":"CHill","date":"October 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Time to start wrapping up the season. The Pan American Games are still on tap for the end of the month, but I don\u2019t see them changing anything here \u2013 or with most of the post season awards yet to be distributed. So I will start with event #1\u2019s, move\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=593#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh5.ggpht.com\/-nlfPbKjmChI\/TpOMUaQojSI\/AAAAAAAAAiI\/u4jfwfxb0pw\/image_thumb.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":580,"url":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=580","url_meta":{"origin":577,"position":4},"title":"Brussels Will End Season with Few Big Match Ups","author":"CHill","date":"September 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"We were told that the Diamond League was going to bring the best of the best together on a regular basis. That all of those key match ups that had been missing in the sport were going to become reality by the Diamond League contracting with all the main characters\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Bolt\"","block_context":{"text":"Bolt","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?tag=bolt"},"img":{"alt_text":"image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh4.ggpht.com\/-dNmZRcij7Ek\/TnCykDvjAyI\/AAAAAAAAAe4\/dUG17aOVhSA\/image_thumb.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":476,"url":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=476","url_meta":{"origin":577,"position":5},"title":"Penn Relay Pools are Out \u2013 No Bolt or Gay","author":"CHill","date":"April 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the highlights of the Penn Relays is the \u201cUSA vs. The World\u201d segment of relays \u2013 4x1, 4x4, Sprint Medley, Distance Medley. While all the relay teams have yet to be identified, the pools for the US and Jamaica have been released. While the names of those that\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=476#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh5.ggpht.com\/_q69RXDGKhjE\/TbhpCYjDtCI\/AAAAAAAAAKY\/2_9IzeI8Vn8\/image_thumb%5B1%5D.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577","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=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":764,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions\/764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh5.ggpht.com\/-ymJVZSMAvuE\/TmoNT6YDZ7I\/AAAAAAAAAdw\/wQ21kwN7w_k\/s1600-h\/image%25255B2%25255D.png\" "\\"image\\"")
<\/a> Powell. At the gun it looked like Powell was going to run away with the race as he got his typical blitzkrieg start blowing the field away in the first 50 meters. The second 50 meters was also typical, except instead of Bolt and Gay shifting gears it was Blake as he ran past Powell to victory in a new PR of 9.82. Blake is clearly one of the elite sprinters and with this race may have become Jamaica\u2019s #2 man. It looks like Bolt and Gay may have a new threat to deal with next year. <\/p>\n