Rojo Unfiltered
By: Robert Johnson

July 11, 2004 From the 2003 US Olympic Track and Field Trials

First things first.  Now that I'm here at the Trials, I've got to admit that I'm glad I came. Now I know track fans might find it blasphemous that one of the co-founders of LetsRun.com wouldn't want to come to the US Olympic Track and Field Trials, but I really wasn't psyched about coming out. Not because I don't think the trials are amazing. It's just  that now that I'm coaching at Cornell, I've basically been at a track meet every single week since the beginning of January, and I just wanted to sit on my porch and enjoy the amazing Ithaca summer. 75 degree days. As a Texas native, I never realized the summer could be so enjoyable.

Now that I'm here, I'm enjoying the drama for sure.

What's jumped out me to date:

1) Mo Greene is the man.  The guys is amazing and he puts on a great show.  The 100 meter final on the men's side was amazing.  I mean it's better than any European meet all year and certainly more stacked than the Olympic final.  Imagine being fourth place finisher Coby Miller - you run 9.99 and don't make the team. I mean fifth and sixth were crazy fast as well - Capel in 10.02 and Williams in 10.04. The race reminded my of the days in the 1990s when 9.9 was considered fast.  Maybe we are getting drug-free once again (although I doubt it).

2) The press coverage of the 100m drives me nuts. Greene, the defending Olympic champ, runs an unbelievable race and yet the headline on ESPN was Breaking News - "Montgomery Fails in 100m Finals". Please. The AP article that the headline linked to focused totally on Montgomery as well. It's crazy, but it's all because of the Balco drug scandal.

In the long-term, the focus on cleaning up the sport is great. I mean one of the main reasons why we started this website was to drive the anti-drug movement but I just don't think the Trials are the time to totally focus on it. I just hope that every time Barry Bonds comes up to bat this summer, they say that his personal trainer has been indicted in the BALCO scandal.

3) Way to go Sheena - One of the rules in the press box is "No cheering from the press box." Well let me admit it here, I was cheering for Sheena Johnson today. I wrote a half-page feature on Sheena for The Washington Post last week and have covered her at the last two NCAAs and as a result have grown to become a fan of hers. I mean she's very impressive, very mature and very fast.

What a great race. 4 women running smoking fast and Sheena won.  Doesn't get better than that.

Coming into the race the world leading time for 2004 was Jana Pittman's 53.52.  4th placer Sandra Glover needed to run faster than that to make the team. Such is the fate of some American sprinters and Kenyan distance runners - crazy good but still not good enough to be Olympians.

Glover's 53.64 would have put her 3rd in the world before yesterday.  With a late surge, Sheena pulled it off in the quick 52.95, second was Brenda Taylor (53.36) and third was Lashinda Demus (53.43).  Demus had to have been on American record pace heading into the final 2 hurdles.

I do have a confession to make, however. I wasn't cheering from the press box as we didn't even go to the Trials today. With all the events being sprints, we figured the best seat would be the one in front of our television tuned to NBC. We were all psyched with our decision as we saw some great replays on the tube, avoided the long lines, as well as the $7 parking fee and 93 degree heat.

4) Lastly, let me say that the LetsRun.com message board posters are way off based at times.  I mean people are ripping into Jason Lunn for making supposed arrogant comments about Alan Webb (There actually is more than one thread on this topic. Thread one is here, thread two is here). Well I don't know where they read these arrogant comments but I was at the press conference and if you read my recap of it, Lunn certainly was far from arrogant. Perhaps it was just another case of some lazy journalist taking his comments out of context as Lunn was unbelievable gracious when he talked of Webb and said that Webb possessed certain tools that he doesn't possess.

That being said, and I've been cheering for Webb all year, I don't think Webb is a sure thing. I mean what Lunn said is correct, it's rare for the favorite in the men's 1500 to actually win it.  Lunn has a great finishing kick, has been running well of late and in my mind has a shot at winning it.  Being a betting man, I certainly know one thing, the odds of Webb winning are far from the 98.1% that the LetsRun.com viewers picked him. If there were odds in Vegas on the race similar to the odds on our website, I'd put a lot down on Lunn at .6% as the expected value of that bet has to be pretty high at those odds.

Will Lunn win? I'd bet on it. I mean my god the odds of Webb being tripped have to be greater than 1.9% percent.

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