Ethiopian Dire Tune backed up her surprise Boston Marathon victory with a pending world record in the rarely contested one hour run today in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
Less than one month past her 23rd birthday, Tune made it around the track a little more than 46 times, covering 18,517 meters before the one hour time limit. That easily surpassed the 18,340 meters Kenya’s
Tegla Loroupe covered in Borgholzhausen, Germany, on August 8, 1998, the previous world record.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Week In the Rear View is a weekly column wrapping up the week’s events in running and track & field. I am normally found at PreraceJitters.com, writing about the fast life of track and field.
This was a week that saw records drop. The Prefontaine Classic is one of the hallowed places in the United States to host a track and field meet. The standing ovation for Maria Mutola was griping. The track great won her 16th and final Pre Classic 800. One track expert I spoke with on the phone after the meet summed it up best saying, “The fans at Pre really get it. They really get the sport.”
Jeremy Wariner did more than “bounce back” from the rare loss to LaShawn Merritt in Berlin last week. The Olympic and World Champion ran 43.98 in the IAAF Golden League Meet in Oslo on Friday. Some of the pundits may have forgotten that Michael Johnson lost to Frankie Fredricks in the 200 after the 1996 U.S. Olympic Trials and before going on to run 19.32 the Olympics Games.
Meet records fell across all event groups, none bigger than Brad Walker’s American record in the pole vault, and Maria Mutola had a historic exit Sunday at the Nike Prefontaine Classic.
The fourth event of USATF’s Visa Championship Series, the Nike Prefontaine Classic drew a meet-record 14,221 fans to Hayward Field, site of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Track & Field June 27-July 6. They were treated to a formidable show, including no fewer than eight meet records and Walker’s AR.
The 2007 world champion, Walker looked magnificent throughout the competition. He had just one miss, at his opening height of 5.70m/18-8.25, then passed to 5.90m/19-4.25, which he cleared on his first attempt and which won the competition for him. Walker then elevated the bar to 6.04m/19-9.75. On his very first attempt, he cleared, brushing the bar just a bit, but leaving it up.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tirunesh Dibaba made her first outing of the summer a memorable one after breaking the world record in the 5000m at the ExxonMobil Bislett Games in the Norwegian capital.
For the second straight year, the Oslo meet played host to a new women’s standard in the event. This time around, it was Dibaba smashing the record that her compatriot Meseret Defar smashed last year.
This is a very joyous day for me today,” said Dibaba after her stunning 14:11.15 performance which eclipsed Defar’s performance by more than five-and-a-half seconds. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and this is a very special day for me.”
Read the rest of this entry »
The Week In the Rear View is a weekly column wrapping up the week’s events in running and track & field. I am normally found at PreraceJitters.com, writing about the fast life of track and field.
Everyone in the track world is talking about Usain “Lightening” Bolt. He shut ‘em down—literally! Bolt quieted his critics with a 9.72 seconds World Record performance with World Champion Tyson Gay in the race. Tyson Gay looked in good shape for this time of season running 9.85, which was good enough for second. Doesn’t that sound crazy? Bolt is now the favorite in Beijing, but two months is certainly a long time from now.
You could call it the law of averages. The Jeremy Wariner vs. LaShawn Merritt race in Berlin resulted in the end of Wariner’s winning streak that dates back to 2005. Merritt was superb. He executed a perfect race strategy to deliver the win. Before the media writes the early demise of Wariner, it should be noted that he isn’t in top shape, not yet—that will be in Beijing.
It is true that most of the 6,000-plus spectators who filled Ichan Stadium here, especially the 1,000 or so Jamaicans, came to see explosive sprinters like Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay and Allyson Felix. Their cheers, deafening during the sprints, were largely lacking during the distance events, despite the entreaties of RRW’s favorite meet announcer Scott Davis.
However, some exciting sprint finishes in the longer races did get the crowds on their feet, in particular the finish of the men’s 5000m where Shadrack Kosgei of Kenya and Ali Abdosh of Ethiopia duked it out on the final 100m, the first race after a 45 minute delay caused by a heavy thunderstorm. The pair were running close to 13-flat pace throughout the race, and it took a 56-second final 400m by Kosgei to lock down the win by just 4/100ths of a second, 13:14.46 to 13:14.50. Abdosh was sprinting so fast in the final meters he nearly fell as he crossed the finish line.
“I thought the sprint was fantastic,” said a beaming Kosgei. “I was really strong.”
Read the rest of this entry »
An eagerly anticipated 100m face off between World champion Tyson Gay of the U.S. and world record holder Asafa Powell of Jamaica has been set for the Aviva London Grand Prix on July 25-26, organizers announced.
With both sprinters gearing up for the Olympic Games, the race at London’s Crystal Palace will likely be their only face-to-face prior to Beijing.
“London will be very crucial for me,” said Gay, who last year stormed to World titles at both the 100 and 200m in Osaka. “It is one of the biggest meets of the year right now and that is where it is going down between myself and Asafa. He has the title of being the World record holder and I have the title of being the World champion, and I think that is really good for the sport.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Or, How I learned To Live Without New Mile World Records
Between July 17th, 1945 and May 6th, 1954 a period of 3,215 days or 8 years, 9 months, 20 days passed. What’s so significant about that time period? Well, the track historians among you might recognize the latter date as one of considerable historical significance for our sport, for humanity, really. That was the date on which Great Britain’s Roger Bannister ran himself into immortality by becoming the first man to break four minutes for the mile run. Bannister ran 3:59.6 that day, surpassing the world record of 4:01.3 that had stood for nearly a decade and was owned by Sweden’s Gunder Hägg.
That time period of 3,215 days is the longest passage of time between world records in the mile since the IAAF era began in 1912. That dubious record is about to be broken. That’s right, folks – on April 25th, 2008, 3,216 days will have passed since Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco set the current world record of 3:43.13 for the mile run on July 7th, 1999. Those of you who consider yourselves to be track historians realize the significance of this fact. Before Bannister was able to break through that four-minute barrier, track pundits had been postulating that man had reached the limits of his abilities, that the four-minute barrier was impenetrable. They argued that so much time had passed since the world record had been broken, it was obvious that it would never again be broken; in fact, some argued that those foolhardy enough to try would die in the process. (A great account of the lead-up to Bannister’s historic achievement can be read in Neal Bascomb’s terrific book entitled The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It.)
Read the rest of this entry »
Kenyans Prepare To Storm Edinburgh
Even though (or perhaps because) no individual Kenyan athlete has won the individual men’s title since 1999, if you were a betting person, then one of the 37 athletes on the Kenyan cross-country team going to Edinburgh, Scotland for the 2008 IAAF World Cross Country Championships would be as sure a bet as any you could make.
Read more at: [IAAF]
NCAA Replay on ESPN2
If you’re a track fan, you know the drill. Just about any meet you watch on TV is going to be a delayed broadcast. The 2008 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships are no exception. Better late than never, though, right? You can catch them Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 4:00 PM on ESPN2.
Read more at: [ESPN Guide]
Gerbrselassie: No Sub Two-Hour Marathon
Marathon world record holder Haile Gebrselassie said that “it’ll be hard to get under two hours in the next 20 years.” He also talked about Beijing’s pollution, which an analysis by the IOC has determined does pose some risk to athletes in outdoor endurance events.
Read more at: [IHT][AP]
Read the rest of this entry »
Pat Butcher reports that Haile Gebrselassie has hit the half-way mark at the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon in 1:01:27. He hit the half in 1:02:29 in Berlin last September when he set his 2:04:26 world record.
More later…
Setting a world record is never easy, but it’s particularly difficult in the marathon. Not only must an athlete spend three to four injury-free months training for a single competitive effort, he must have near-perfect conditions: a flat course, excellent pacemaking, ideal weather, and a well-marked and measured course. A little luck doesn’t […]
Both Haile Gebrselassie and a one million dollar prize money purse will be on the line for the 9th edition of the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon set for Friday, January 18, in the United Arab Emirates.
Gebrselassie, who knocked down Paul Tergat’s marathon world record in Berlin last September to a previously unimagined 2:04:26, will be […]
Reuters French language service is reporting that Hicham El Guerrouj plans to participate in the Prom’ Classique 10-K road race in Nice next January 6. But don’t expect too much. The world record holder for both the 1500m and the mile says he’s only running 12 to 14 kilometers per week and expects […]
World, national and course records, thrilling finishes, more than 300,000 participants, and a championship race that went down to the final day highlighted the inaugural 2006-2007 World Marathon Majors Series, and ushered in a brand new era of growth and excitement in the sport.
After a six month break, the excitement will continue at the 2008 […]
Paula Radcliffe “disturbed and disappointed” by Ohuruogu’s admission
British marathon world-record holder Paula Radcliffe, known for her strong stance against doping, has said that she is “disturbed and disappointed” by sprinter Christine Ohuruogu’s recent statements about her failure to make a doping test. Read more at: [Citizen, South Africa]
Winning Streaks of World’s Best Athletes on […]
X-Man Moves to Gainesville To Train for Beijing
Xavier “X-Man” Carter, history’s 2nd alltime fastest 200m runner, has moved to Gainesville, FL to train with his coach Mike Holloway and to focus on qualifying for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. Read more at: [Total Sports Management]
Asafa Powell To Begin 2008 Campaign in Australia
Enthused by the […]
Former world record holder in the marathon, Paul Tergat, has abruptly withdrawn from Sunday’s Fukuoka Marathon, according to a published report on the website of Japan’s largest English language newspaper, The Daily Yomiuri.
According to the report, Tergat was called to attend a special Kenyan armed forces training camp. The report said that the information […]
Meseret Defar and sprinter Tyson Gay were named the World Athletes of the Year for 2007 at the World Athletics Gala held in Monte Carlo last night.
Defar, 24, shattered her won world record in the 5000 meters, running 14:16.63 in Oslo in June, breaking her own previous standard by more than eight seconds. The reigning […]
On 18 November, 2007, “Marathon” Don Kern will begin an attempt to break the Guinness World Record “Marathon on each continent - Shortest duration to complete (Men)” by running in organized marathons on each of the seven continents in 25 days. Scheduled conclusion is 12 December 2007.
In February and March 2007, Kern successfully attempted […]
© 2006-2008 The Final Sprint, LLC | Privacy Policy | Design by The Blog Studio
The Final Sprint, LLC is owned and operated by Adam Jacobs
The Final Sprint