Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

I took in a coaching presentation sponsored by Suunto, a watch/heart rate monitor company. I went solely for one reason- The Training of Carolina Kluft presentation. I had to sit through a demonstration of the watch and a presentation by an exercise physiologist on measuring EPOC. Kluft's coaches presentation was good, nothing earth shattering other than good solid progression over 10 years.

Random Comments:
Two great comments that Turena got at the athletes village, both have to be done in your best foriegn accent:

1. "Oh, American. George Bush, stupid, stupid man. No good"
2. "Ahhh, American.. Me from Slovakia. Slovakia and America good friends, Very good friends"
   

Eurosport is officially the channel of the gods. They replay the meet twice a day and then also provide live coverage.

The Meet:
Good, but not as good as last two nights. Cool and rainy all day, let up about 30 minutes before the meet started.

I'll start with the National Pride again. This night goes to the Ethiopians, who always show up for the men's 10,000. They are small in numbers, but you can't miss the yellow, red, and green group somewhere in the stadium, making a ton of noise.

Berquist probably picked up the largest support of the crowd throughout the night. Her world record jumps were sandwiched just after the 400 heats and before the 100, so she had 35,000 people joined in rhythmic clapping.

Simply the Best by Tina Turner is the official victory lap song. I've grown tired of it by now.

The Events:
Women's High Jump: A good competition, but one that took a very, long time, with all of the running events putting a delay on the jumping opportunities. Chaunte Howard battled well with Berquist through 1.93. In the end Berquist won, going clean over 1.98 without a miss and only missing at 2.00, clearing 2.02 on her first attemp to win. She then took the bar up 8 more cm to attempt a world record three times. Sweden also claimed a bronze with Emma Green PR'ing at 1.96.

Men's Hammer: Belarus went 1-2 with and Poland third. That's about all I know, I just watched, but no nothing about anyone in the event.

Men's 10,000: The usual. Ethiopians, Kenyans, Eritreans stack it up front, Ethiopians control it and then with a lap to go everyone sprints and the winner runs 54 for last 400. Ethiopia has control on 10k, going 1-2 in the men's and 1-2-3 in the women's race. If you can't run at least sub 56 for the last 400 of the 10k, you will never medal. Also if you can't run handle the pace bouncing around from 66 to 60 to 62 to 61 to 66, then you'll likewise never medal.

Women's 400 semis: Monique Darling seems to be rounding into form at the right time. She ran the fastest in the semis and looked easy in doing it. U.S. had all three advanced as they did last year in Athens. Should be a good final.

Women's 100: About 2 minutes before the start of the race, it started to rain. The wind was swirling all night, but shifted just in time to get behind the sprinters. Lauryn Williams was gone from the get go and this time never relinquished her lead.

Men's 1500 semis: Alan Webb took the lead in the second heat and was flying. It looked like he really tied up in the last 50 but he held on for second and an auto spot in the final. I'll give him credit, he had up to 30 meters on the rest of the field for a long time and knew that the first heat was dead slow. Run fast and make the finals...and he did.

Women's Steeple: I hope this race improves exponentially soon, because I found it to be a bore. Fifteen women ran and for a 3000 meter race, they sure were scattered all over the track after two laps.