Where Your Dreams Become Reality |
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America's Dream Mile In NYC - Only One Week Away A men's mile in New York City featuring: Bernard Lagat, Kevin Sullivan, Alan Webb, Nick Willis, Craig Mottram and Kenyans Simotwo Suleiman, Shadrack Korir and Nicholas Kemboi Yes. No typos. All of those people will be there. And yes, it's actually a mile - not a 1500 so everything is perfect. In case you were born yesterday, that is an unreal field. A field that should totally capture the imagination of all track and field fans in the US. So many subplots. Lagat v. Webb: Who is America's best miler? Lagat v Mottram: Can you say Millrose rematch? And of course, Webb v Willis. That one will probably have the die-hard letsrun.com visitor salivating for 10 days. It actually may be too much for the Warhurst/Razcko haters/lovers to handle. Hopefully, it's just round 1 of a great professional rivalry to determine perhaps who is the best non-African born miler in the world. From an international perspective, the story of Lagat v. Suleiman (who has already run 3:31 this year) and his Kenyan compatriots may be: "Can Suleiman emerge as a new star to challenge Lagat at the 2007 World Champs and therefore the 2008 Olympics?" If you call yourself a track and field fan and live on the East Coast, you owe it to yourself and the sport you love to get to Icahn stadium next week in Randall's Island (NYC) to see the Reebok Grand Prix. The refrain we heard from the time we got interested in track and field - late 1980s- til recently was "If only America had big meets with top stars like Europe,then the sport would be popular here." The mile alone is worth the price of admissions. Sure every year, America has the fantastic mile at the Pre Classic. But that's on the West Coast and that meet is always a sell out. This year there is a world class mile right in NYC. Last year, the meet had it all - great sprint action, great distance action including a women's world 5k record and yet the attendance in our minds was a fraction of what it should have been. The meet even had New York native Justin Gatlin (pre drugs bust) run 9.87 and New Yorkers couldn't even come out and pack the place. Distance fans (minus some Ethiopians) didn't seem to show up. We keep hearing how NYC is the savior for our sport, so can we see it by fans actually buying tickets (we'd go ourselves but will be at a wedding. Maybe we'll have a contest to see who wants to cover the meet for LetsRun) Stop making excuses. Stop being lazy by watching the meet on tv. Get your butt in the stands. Make a weekend of it. Take your spouse to a show, go to the meet, etc. For ticket info, visit the event website at www.ReebokGrandPrix.com or call 1-877-TIX-TRAC. Tickets are $20, $30 and $40 each. The whole meet has great action (there's a very good men's 5k) but the mile field appears below. If you want to read our take on a very entertaining teleconference promoting the mile with Craig Mottram and Bernard Lagat, please click here. 2007 Men's Mile Reebok Grand Prix .
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