Beijing Previews
Deep Men’s 800m Field Gets Ready To Toe The Line
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
Although the 800m dash is becoming respectable again (as far as depth goes), it’s still not anywhere near what we saw in Athens. On the Beijing entry list there are five 1:42 guys, eight 1:43 guys and fifteen 1:44 guys. While that sounds pretty impressive, the Athens Games had one 1:41 guy, six 1:42 guys, eleven 1:43 guys and sixteen 1:44 guys.
That doesn’t mean the going will be easy this time around, though. Yuriy Borzakovskiy, with his recent 1:42.79 performance, seems determined to become only the 4th man in history to defend his 800m Olympic title. Will he be able to hold off teen sensation Abubaker Kaki, who shows a proclivity for running without any restraint whatsoever and has never lost a race in his short career? Kenyan turned Bahraini Yusuf Saad Kamel should be right in the mix to give both men plenty of trouble.
Will Men’s 5000m Be Yet Another 4000m Jog/1000m Dash?
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
Get this: eighteen men on the start list for tomorrow’s 5000m heats have PR’s that are faster than the Olympic record of 13:05.59 which was set by Said Aouita way back in 1984. That includes three Ethiopians (world-record holder Kenenisa Bekele, his little bro’ Tariku Bekele, Abreham Cherkos), three speedy Kenyans (Eliud Kipchoge, Thomas Pkemei Longosiwa, Edwin Cheruiyot Soi), a plucky Australian (Buster Mottram) who thinks that African distance runners can be beat, a pretty dangerous Ugandan (Moses Kipsiro) and even a couple of guys (Bernard Lagat, Matt Tegenkamp) who are a part of the American distance resurgence.
Most Olympic 5000m finals are tactical affairs. Take for instance the 2004 Games. The first 1000m split was 2:58.5, on pace for an embarrassing 14:52 finish. The next 1000m split was a respectable 2:37.5, a pace which would have yielded a final time of 13:07. The 3rd 1000m split was a serious 2:34.9, on pace for a scintillating 12:54.5. The fourth 1000m found the runners putting on the brakes again. The split at the 10 lap mark was 2:37.7, which would have been good for a final time of 13:08.6. Finally, it got down to the 1000m race it really was all along. The final 1000m was run in an unseemly 2:25.8, which would have translated to a 12:08.9 final time had some super human been able to run that pace for twelve and a half laps.
Beijing Olympics: Heptathlon Preview
Thursday, August 14th, 2008
With 2007 world champion Carolina Klüft out of the picture, the Beijing Olympic Heptathlon should be another wide-open affair. Of the 11 entrants who have PRs of 6400+ points, 7 have set their PRs this season. Klüft has decided to forgo the Beijing Heptathlon in favor of the Long Jump and Triple Jump. Jessica Ennis, who finished 4th in Osaka, is injured and will not be competing.
Osaka silver medalist Lyudmila Blonksa owns the best PR of the Beijing field and the 3rd best score of 2008. Hyleas Fountain and Tatyana Chernova have the two highest scores in the world this season. Olga Kurban, Kelly Sotherton and Lilli Schwarzkopf are also 6500+ Heptathletes. Those six should be right in the mix in the battle for the three Beijing Heptathlon medals. Here are the ones to watch:
| Athlete | NAT | SB | PB | Osaka Place |
| Lyudmila Blonska | UKR | 6570 | 6832 | 2 |
| Hyleas Fountain | USA | 6667 | 6667 | DNF |
| Tatyana Chernova | RUS | 6618 | 6618 | DNF |
| Olga Kurban | RUS | 6559 | 6559 | 19 |
| Kelly Sotherton | GBR | 6547 | 3 | |
| Lilli Schwarzkopf | GER | 6536 | 6536 | 5 |
| Kamila Chudzik | POL | 6494 | 6494 | 21 |
| Anna Bogdanova | RUS | 6452 | 6452 | 10 |
| Jennifer Oeser | GER | 6436 | 6436 | 7 |
| Austra Skujyte | LTU | 6235 | 6435 | 6 |
| Karolina Tyminska | POL | 6351 | 6402 | 15 |
| Nataliya Dobrynska | UKR | 6268 | 6387 | 8 |
| Marie Collonvillé | FRA | 6256 | 6350 | 9 |
| Sonja Kesselschläger | GER | 6311 | 6311 | 13 |
| Kylie Wheeler | AUS | 6087 | 6298 | 12 |
| Ida Marcussen | NOR | 6213 | 6226 | 11 |
| Jolanda Keizer | NED | 6105 | 6219 | 14 |
Beijing Olympics: Women’s 800m Preview
Saturday, August 9th, 2008
In my Beijing Medal Predictions, I have changed my choices for silver and bronze in the women’s 800m. I had thought all Russians were suspended but as it turns out only Yelena Soboleva has been. Tatyana Andrianova (RUS) will win the silver and Svetlana Klyuka (RUS) will take bronze.
That being said, I do have my suspicions about both athletes. It just seems too coincidental that they’ve both set PRs during the same season that the Russian team is being accused of systematic doping and have the 3rd and 4th fastest times in the world during a season that has produced some incredible times in the event. Even so, they haven’t been suspended, so they will be running in Beijing. I won’t be rooting for them, but they will probably finish 2nd and 3rd.
Beijing Olympics: Men’s 400m Hurdles Preview
Friday, August 8th, 2008
This has been a lackluster season in the 400m hurdles with few PR’s having been set by any of the top runners in the event. Look for a possible sweep by the United States in Beijing. The USA has been so dominant in the men’s 400m hurdles that its runners own 74 of the top 100 times in history. Of course, it helps that just one man, Edwin Moses, has run 26 of those. In recent years, Kerron Clement, despite his less-than-perfect hurdling technique, has stood head and shoulders above the rest of the world. His season’s best time is nearly 1/2 second faster than anyone else. Barring a catastrophe, he’ll win the gold medal.
If nations weren’t limited to just 3 athletes per individual event then six Americans would be in the 400m hurdles final: Kerron Clement, Bershawn Jackson, Reuben McCoy, Angelo Taylor, Justin Gaymon and Johnny Dutch. But, since everyone knows the Olympics isn’t about single nation domination (Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink), were going to have to let some other countries into the final.
If anyone is going to prevent a USA sweep with Clement, Jackson and Taylor all taking the medal stand while the Star Spangled Banner plays, it’s going to be either L.J. van Zyl of South Africa or Danny McFarlane of Jamaica.
Beijing Olympics: Women’s 3000m Steeplechase Preview
Friday, August 8th, 2008
The inaugural women’s 3000m steeplechase at the Beijing Olympics is going to be a wide-open affair with only 5 of the 15 sub 9:30 runners from 2008 having competed in the World Championships final in Osaka last year. It would be easy—and a safe bet—to predict a Russian sweep. After all, between the three Russians (Gulnara Samitova-Galkina, Tatyana Petrova and Yekaterina Volkova), they own 12 of the top 15 times in history, including Galkina’s 9:01.59 world record from 2004. But this is no ordinary season for the women’s 3000m steeplechase.
Of the 15 women who have broken 9:30 this season, 11 of them have set new PRs while doing so. None of them have shown any interest in running slow, tactical races in 2008. Of these 15, only Yelena Sidorchenkova will not be competing in Beijing. Unfortunately for her, her PR of 9:24.04 wasn’t fast enough (!) for her to make the Russian team.
Beijing Olympics: Men’s 1500m Preview
Monday, August 4th, 2008
I’m what would be called a visual-spatial learner. I prefer to process information by looking at it. When I began analyzing the data for the men’s 1500m run to come up with my preview, I inputted the gold, silver and bronze-medal winning times for the past 8 Olympics as well as the world-leading time for each of the years going into each Olympic Games. When I graphed that data, the results were quite startling in their consistency.
As you can easily see in the graph at left, the gold medal-winning time was almost invariably several seconds slower than the world-leading time going into that Olympic Games. The silver medalist was just tenths of a second behind the winner and the bronze medalist was even closer. The sole exception to this rule was Sebastian Coe’s gold-medal winning performance in 1984. His winning time was just 0.99 seconds behind Saïd Aouita’s world-leading time of 3:31.54. Other than that, you could almost set your clock by the medalists’ times in comparison to the world-leading times for that year.