Semi-Live Blog: Our Thoughts As The 2009 adidas Track Classic Is Broadcast Live on ESPN2

110:51 Well that should wrap up our blog. We wanted to thank you for coming to LRC to get your info. We know why you do - we know our stuff. We predicted the 1st and 2nd place finishers correctly in the men's 5k, women's steeple, and men's 1,500 and got the winner right in the women's 1,500. We just butchered the women's 800 and 5k predictions. Oh well.

0:48 pm. We nailed the men's 5k as it was the 1-2 punch that we predicted.

Finals                                                         
  1 Gebremeskel, Dejen           E T H                 13:16.52
  2 Cragg, Alistair              I R E                 13:16.83
  3 Baughs, Scott                U S A                 13:38.95
  4 Asmerom, Bolota              U S A                 13:39.93
  5 Boit, Josphat                K E N                 13:42.19
  6 Dobson, Ian                  U S A                 13:46.65
  7 Torres, Jorge                U S A                 13:54.32
  8 Summerside, Seth             U S A                 13:58.31
  9 Horn, Jordan                 U S A                 14:00.70
 10 Kimutai, Cosmas              K E N                 14:08.31
 -- Pierce, Jon                  U S A                      DNF
 -- Pifer, Stephen               U S A                      DNF
 -- Watson, Luke                 U S A                                            

10:45 Women' steeple is over: Nice run for Anna Willard. Look for her to get the American record soon.

Finals                                                         
  1 Willard, Anna                U S A                  9:26.85
  2 Anderson, Lindsey            U S A                  9:37.88
  3 Allen, Lindsey               U S A                  9:47.21
  4 Kiamayo, Irene               K E N                  9:50.55
  5 Dicrescenzo, Delilah         U S A                  9:53.58
  6 Galaviz, Lisa                U S A                  9:57.51
  7 Lorenzen, Amanda             U S A                 10:07.72
 -- Hyman, Mardrea               J A M                      DNF

10:42: Ok the results are finally up at the adidas site. Check out the 1,500.

Finals                                                         
  1 Lagat, Bernard               U S A                  3:36.38
  2 Brannen, Nate                C A N                  3:37.03
  3 Van Der Westhuizen, Pete     R S A                  3:38.29
  4 Lomong, Lopez                U S A                  3:39.21
  5 Leer, Will                   U S A                  3:39.69
  6 Lalang, Boaz                 K E N                  3:39.90
  7 Sherer, Steve                U S A                  3:39.97
  8 Jager, Evan                  U S A                  3:40.60
  9 Solares, Pablo               M E X                  3:42.88
 10 Rankin, Jon                  U S A                  3:43.68
 11 Myers, Rob                   U S A                  3:44.83
 12 Perkins, Adam                U S A                  3:48.14
 13 Krummenacker, David          U S A                  3:49.70
 14 Manzano, Leo                 U S A                  3:57.55
 -- Shaw, Brandon                U S A                      DNF
 -- Hesch, Christian             U S A                      DNF
 -- Lukezic, Chris               U S A                      DNF

Very interesting. First thoughts. Awful, awful days for Manzano, Krummenacker and Lukezic. Not good for Rankin and and it looks like Solares is fried after a great indoo season. Will Leer apparently wasn't a fluke 4th placer at the Trials. Alan Webb may be able to eke a spot onto the WChamp team even as a shadow of his former self as guys in just 3:55 shape may be able to get on there as after Lagat, it seems wide open right now. Webb beat 3rd placer Van Der Westhuizen (3:38.29) twice already.

9:55 We have to go. We'll be back in 15 minutes .Hopefully they'll have the results up by then. If the results arent' made up for the 1,500 on the messageboard, we'll want to comment on them.

9:48 WOW. WOW. WOW. Flanagan is getting murdered. How did she and/or Goucher ever get a medal? I mean know they are good but pretty soon women's running is going to be like men's - African domination. We bet John Cook is laughing his ass off. This just makes us apprecaite her medal even more.

9:32 Jenn S. is going for an American record at 16-2. One miss. Jenn looks great.

Women's 200m. Felix, Richards. ANOTHER FALSE START. Worst starter ever. Larry Rawson just wants to get out of the booth. You know, false starts wouldn't be that bad if the FREAKING ANNOUNCERS wouldn't complain about it! Just keep talking and be interesting. 2nd try...

and they're off... Felix out in front, Richards looks average. Great race for Felix. 22.66 seconds with a headwind. All of the sprint times have been slow thanks to a strong headwind.

Felix is just planning on running the 200m at worlds.

9:25 Men's 200m. Not exactly an international field, all from the USA. But we're the only country that can provide a sick 200m all with our own athletes, and not even the best ones (aka Tyson Gay and Walter Dix). False start. Larry Rawson genius: "the key to this race is running the first 100m really hard". Get this guy a coaching job. Merritt absolutely demolishes a strong field! "Crosses the line with relaxation!!" Thank you Lewis. That's the second time he has used that line in the last 15 minutes.

But seriously, LaShawn Merritt is ridonkulous. Wow, wow, wow. 20.07. According to this post-race interview: Merritt is not thinking about doubling this year. All Dwight Phillips wants to talk about is worlds. The man ran an amazing race, beating other US Olympians like X-Man and Shawn Crawford by a MINIMUM of 0.65 seconds. Holy crap. Amazing.

adidas athlete insight: Allyson Felix likes the 200m and learned a lot from getting the silver at the Olympics. The track and field interviews and community service stuff has got to be the hokiest stuff on television. It's like you're watching the Hallmark channel all of a sudden. Are we watching track or the Make A Wish Foundation?

9:15 Big field. Rabbit is actually doing a great job but we don't he'll do as well as Wyner did last year.. Looks like 56.4 first 400. Manzano is moving back, Lomong up. 1:40.48 at 700.  Looks like 1:55 at 800 it's Lagat, Lomong, Van Der Westhuizen, Brannen, Lalang, then Solares. 2:40.02 with a lap to go and it's Lagat, Van Der, LOmong and then Brannen. Here comes Brannen with 250 to go.  OH WAIT LARRY RAWSON JUST CALLED BRANNEN LUKEZIC.HILARIOUS.

So Lagat gets the win and Rawson thinks he's disappointed because he didn't get the A standard. Why in god's name would he be disappointed? He ran 3:32.75 last year in Rieti.

To us, that race must make Alan Webb happy as Peter Van Der Westhuizen got 3rd. Webb has beaten him twice this year.

Our main thoughts after the race: WE CALLED IT PERFECTLY - LAGAT ADN THEN BRANNEN. We knew Brannen would do well and yet Larry Rawson doesn't even kno whis name.

Also how windy was it? Looks like the field was really struggling out there.  Also how mediocre did Lomong and Manzano look? Too bad we can't really analyze as the freaking online-results aren't working. Come on people. You spend a million bucks to have a meet and you can't even have online results that work?

9:09 pm. Ok in this sprint race there is a false-start which isn't called so Yohan Balke just sat in the blocks as everyone else ran the race. Darvis Patton (another Nike guy) gets the win in 10.12. LRC favorite Steve Mullings was 3rd. Where the hell was Richard Thompson? Was Walter Dix not supposed to be in this meet. We thought he was but maybe we messed up. Our bad. Employee #1 says that we messed up on that one. Can someone e-mail me and tell me the truth.

9:06 pm. Why don't they just interview Gay when they are watching a false start or having him come into the booth and comment on the sprints.

9:05 pm We aren't listening to the interview of Tyson Gay (tv is on mute) as an attractive woman just knocked on our door but we are pleased to see Tyson Gay getting some press. ARE WE THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO REALIZE HE RAN 9.68 WHILE BOLT RAN 9.69?

8:59 PM. Jimmy Wyner says that he's certain they DQ'd the wrong runner. If anyone should know, we guess it would be him. Jeter (another Nike athlete) wins. By the way, did anyone here Lewis Johnson call it the Home Depot meet. It's the adidas Track Classic.

8:58 THE MEET HAS ALMOST BEEN ON TV FOR 1 HOUR AND WE'VE SEEN  5 EVENTS. 400 h for the men, 400 flat women, 1500 women, 100 hurdles women, 110 hurdles men. Oh wait we did see one long jump. Bianca Knight is out. They finally DQd someone.

8:53 It's impossible to have a sprint race without a false-start. While we wait for the 100 meters to start, I'll share a text message we just got from a Cornell runner, "Rawson looks like a bald-headed alien."

It's official. They need to have ZERO FALSE STARTs.

8:42 pm: That was awesome. Best false start ever. The guy in lane 1 just kept running. Probably did about 7 hurdles after the false-start. they shouldn't give them much time as this meet is on TV. Trammell wins. They don't have the results online either so we'll take this time to say we love his ghetto uniform. A tight black and purple and gold top with white soccer shorts. Take that Nike/adidas/Mizuno or whoever.

8:39 pm: OK, it's official. there should be no professional sports in LA as no one shows up for anything. We can't blame them as the weather is so nice there but the crowd is pathetic once again. Apparently this might be the last year of the adidas Track Classic as it might become part of some other meet in California. If only 20 people are going to show up, they should make it part of Modesto Relays or California Relays.

8:38 pm. Why won't they put the 1500 meter results up on-line? So, so annoying as we want to see who got 2nd-3rd, etc but don't have TIVO.

8:33pm. The women's hurdles are a joke. They are too low. We'll never give the event much respect until they raise the hurdles higher than 33 inches. In the high hurdles, someone in the field should at least brush some of the hurdles. Nice to see Dawn Harper win.

Finals                                                               
  1 Harper, Dawn                 U S A                    12.78  -1.1
  2 Felicien, Perdita            C A N                    12.83  -1.1
  3 Perry, Michelle              U S A                    12.84  -1.1
  4 Wilson, Nickiesha            J A M                    12.89  -1.1
  5 Dixon, Vonette               J A M                    12.92  -1.1
  6 Lewis, Yvette                U S A                    13.00  -1.1
  7 Powell, Virginia             U S A                    13.06  -1.1
  8 Davis, Candice               U S A                    13.35  -1.1
  9 Whyte, Angela                C A N                    13.38  -1.

8:26 pm: Looks like the 800 women's race did go off at 7:45 pm as we feared. We really wanted to see that race. Shocked to see Alysia Johnson do so poorly. We really hope she comes back with a vengeance this year.

Guess we aren't goig to properly predict the winner of every race.

Finals                                                          
  1 Clark, Hazel                 U S A                  2:01.40M
  2 Simpson, Jemma               C A N                  2:01.58M
  2 Wurth- Thomas, Christin      U S A                  2:01.58M
  4 Waits, Katie                 U S A                  2:02.36 
  5 Clement, Treniere            U S A                  2:02.80 
  6 Johnson, Alysia              U S A                  2:03.85 
  7 Johnstone, Rebecca           C A N                  2:04.84 
  8 Green, Nikeya                U S A                  2:05.02 
  9 Carlin, Jesse                U S A                  2:05.13 
 -- Panteau, April               T R I                      DNF    

8:22 pm: The rabbit is horrible. But why does Larry Rawson have to always talk about how a fast time isn't going to happen? Who would think a fast time would happen in 12 mph winds. 800 in 2:19-20? Rawson says the slow pace hurts Hasay. False. She can't run 4:07 so the slow pace at least keeps her in it.

1 lap to go (3:10.30.). "Hasay stay put. Don't go 3 wide." Ok 300 to go and Hasay is back on the rail."

Sinclair wins just as LetsRun.com predicted.

8:15 pm: This is embarassing to admit but we have no idea who Ryan Wilson is. He won the Visa championship series indoors. What event does he do?

8:12 pm: Nike comes through. We bet the adidas execs just vomited as there were like 4 adidas athletes clas in the same yellow uniforms going 1-4 with 100 to go before Natasha Hastings came up late and got the win in a slow 51.46. Hastings in the post-race interview said she ran bare-foot at Penn Relays. Anyone know the story about that? Post it in the forum.

8:11 pm: Weather update at 8:05 pm EST. 68 degrees with winds at WNW at  12 mpw. Prettty windy.

8:09 pm. TV vignette on Jenn S. She's a great athelte and normally we love watching her but seeing her on tv isn't really exciting to us. We know she is going to win. To us, track is about drama. We guess the American record possiblity is drama.

8:04 pm: That race certainly lived up to the hype. Seeing Sanchez win the 400m hurdles at home at the Pan Am Games in 2003 was one of our favorite sporting events of all time. Great to see him back.

Today Sanchez got off to a good start and then fought back on the 2nd turn before fading in the last 30 meters. Clement wins but didn't break 48.00. He said last week he wanted a 48 but in the post-race tv acted happy with his 48.38.

Results                                                          
  1 Clement, Kerron              U S A                    48.38M
  2 Taylor, Angelo               U SဠA                    48.70M
  3 Sanchez, Felix               D O M                    48.95M
  4 Tinsley, Michael             U S A                    49.15M
  5 Carter, James                U S A                    49.46M
  6 Johnson, Brandon             U S A                    50.49M
  7 Williams, Derrick            U S A                    51.11M
  8 Ferguson, Kenneth            U S A                    52.08M

8:02 pm. At least they are starting with one of our favorite events that has a great field.

8:00 pm. Shit. I guess for us to expect anything but the 3-stooges was unrealistic (we don't actually think they are the 3-stooges but we like the name).

7:52 pm. Thinking about the sports highlights so far for the day. It's been an amazing day so far. Arod's 1st hit in Yankee stadium was a walkoff. homer The filly wins the Preakness as the Derby winner proves he wasn't a fluke (thank god, tvg.com wouldn't take Rojo's bet as he was going to bet against them both). Nadal wins another clay court tournament and Jimmy Wyner advances in a 1,500 without getting boo'ed or DQd. Unbelievable.

Save on Running Shoes

Advertise on LetsRun.com

Contact Us

Privacy Policy