Schedule of events (Pacific time, because you eastern USers always get preference)
M Long Hurdles - 400m 12:41pm
W Long Hurdles - 400m 12:50pm
W Short Distance - 800m 12:59pm
M Short Hurdles - 100m 1:09pm
W Short Hurdles - 100m 1:18pm
M Long Distance - 3000m 1:27pm
W Long Sprints - 200m 1:43pm
M Long Sprints - 200m 1:52pm
M Short Distance - 1500m 2:01pm
W Short Sprints - 100m 2:13pm
M Short Sprints - 100m 2:22pm
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Distance storylines:
-Welteji sprinted past Hull in the Women's 1500; can she hold off Moraa and the 800m challengers (Wiley, Akins) and the others for the Slam?
-Fisher still the favorite in the 3000, but some young blood should be fun to mix it up (Blanks, Young, Robinson). Coscoran returning might force Fisher to take it fast earlier too.
-Winner of the men's 1500 is far more likely to take the Slam than Arop this time because I doubt Arop finishes top 6 here. Nuguse, Kessler, Kerr, Hocker was the order in the 800 for 3rd-6th, but realistically, whoever wins the 1500 should take this Slam.
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Other thoughts: I like the compressed schedule, and I'm even ok with doing only 1 event for Long Distance (would prefer 5000). That said, it completely sucks money-wise and points-wise for Athlete of the Year category that this group gets completely screwed. Agnes and Fisher have been putting on some fantastic performances, but they are being removed from any chance at the end of the year points standings with this format. The very easy solution is to do 1 race for the Long Distance category with a total purse of $100k and max points for the winner of 24. They could disperse some of the money and points throughout the race itself if they want to make it exciting, but I don't care as long as it's fair. Right now, it's not a fair setup with the current change of format, and it's terrible for optics.