Race Walks
Gold medal Going To Jefferson Perez?
Friday, September 26th, 2008
Reader Richard Boroto wrote the following comment to 400meteroval.com tonight:
At a ceremony this week honoring silver medal-winner, Jefferson Pérez, Ecuadorian Olympic Committee President Danilo Carrera announced that we may see an announcement about doping by the two Russian race walkers in Beijing in the next few days, which would mean the gold medal for Pérez . Carrera didn’t reveal the source of that information.
Pérez finished 2nd at the 2008 Olympics to Valeriy Borchin of Russia. Pérez’ time of 1:19:15, a season’s best, was 14 seconds behind Borchin’s winning time of 1:19:01.
Clay claims “world’s greatest athlete” moniker, wins Olympic decathlon
Friday, August 22nd, 2008
BEIJING - Bryan Clay upgraded his 2004 silver medal to 2008 gold in the decathlon, dominating competition during Friday evening action at the "Bird’s Nest" National Stadium.
Clay (Glendora, Calif.) got his evening off to a very strong start, throwing a season-best 70.97m/232-10 to place third in the javelin. The performance earned him 904 points, bringing his total up to 8,269 with one event remaining in the 10-event competition. Ahead of the field by 479 points, his only competition was himself in the final event, the 1,500m.
Never a favorite event for Clay, he endured through the accumulated fatigue of two days of competition to finish in 5:06.59 for 522 points, bringing his winning total to 8,791 and becoming the first U.S. gold medalist in the event since Dan O’Brien in 1996. Andrei Krauchanka of Belarus took the silver with 8,551, and Leonel Suarez of Cuba finished third with 8,527.
Olympic Record In Beijing 50km Race Walk
Thursday, August 21st, 2008After 40km of the longest race in the Olympic Games, it looks like it’s a three-way race for gold with nobody else even close. Jared Tallent (AUS), Alex Schwazer (ITA) and Denis Nizhegorodov (RUS) are on pace to set an Olympic record, which is currently held by Vyacheslav Ivanenko. Ivanenko set the mark of 3:38:29 while he competed for the Soviet Union in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. They are on pace to finish in a time of 3:38:15. Nizhegorodov’s world record of 3:34:14 is most likely out of reach.
Update: Alex Schwazer of Italy wins, setting an Olympic record of 3:37:09, followed by Jared Tallent of Australia (3:39:27, a PR) then Denis Nizhegorodov of Russia (3:40:14).
Most Expensive Walk In History
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
Heh. You’ve gotta love the race walkers. They work so hard but get absolutely no respect. Until now, that is. They got an $800,000 custom Mondo surface for the Beijing Olympics. Tracy Sundland, a USATF manager said to some of the walkers, "you’ll never have this much money spent on a walking event in history."