After qualifying, it was an absolute stunner when Solomon went to Europe and first ran 1:43.44 in Monaco before running 1:42.82 at the Olympics to finish fourth and become the 2nd fastest American in history.
All we can say is, “Get used to it.”
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The 28-year old Solomon started off his 2013 campaign today in Glasgow, Scotland and emphatically showed his 2012 campaign wasn’t a fluke. Solomon ran a US record of 1:15.70 to break Chip Jenkins nearly 26-year old record of 1:15.80 (which was set Feb. 1, 1987).
Facing fellow 800 Olympic finalist Andrew Osagie and 2011 400 hurdles world champ Dai Greene, Solomon wasted zero time earlier today. He got out fast at the gun and had the following splits (race embedded on left).
23.50
48.84 (25.34)
1:15.70 (26.86)
Greene was the only one in the field to go with the blitzing early pace as Osagie was back in third after a 5 or 6 meter gap. On the last lap, Osagie moved up and ended up battling Greene for second but Solomon led from start to finish. Greene held off Osagie for second and was rewarded with a new British record of 1:16.22.
Other Mid-D and Distance Action – Lagat Wins/Centro Loses
In other mid-d and distance action with American competitors, 2011 world 1,500 bronze medallist and Olympic 4th placer Matt Centrowitz was smoked in the men’s 1500 as he finished third in 3:40.27, nearly two seconds behind Bethwel Birgen‘s winning time of 3:38.37. Birgen is no slouch. He finished 5th at the Kenyan Trials last year and also ran 3:31.00 last year.
The 2013 season opener went better for American Bernard Lagat as he got the win over AugstineChoge in the men’s 3000 – 7:53.36 to Choge’s 7:54.68. 2012 US Olympian Geena Gall was second in the women’s 800 (2:04.71) and Sara Vaughn was third in the women’s 1,500 (4:23.41)
Results for the mid-d and distance action appears below. Embedded youtube videos of each race appear after the results. The rest of the results for the meet are here.
