Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Tuesday New and Notes


Weekly look at the best of the internet running minutia...with links!

DN Galan meet is this afternoon. Results are going to be here.

Of Interest is Matthew Tegenkamp and Edward Moran in the 3000. Even more interesting, perhaps, is Tony Famiglietti in the steeplechase. Is the guy better than ever or just not been challenged yet? Is he getting enough pub as a medal contender? IS he a medal contender? Will his "modern hippy" chic style go over well with the fun-loving yet usually clean shaven Swedes? So many questions will be answered by this one race.

Slattery, Rudolph, and Huddle in the women's 5000. The 'B' tier of the US women's 5k pool, if you will. If Women's US distance running was the movie "Mean Girls," this group would probably be the uncool group trying to get back at the Plastics for always being so popular. Which, I suppose, would make Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher the plastics. Which doesn't necessarily seem right. Then Jen Rhines would be Lindsey Lohan I guess. Wait, who is Tina Fey in all this? Deena? That works, right? This metaphor has spun wildly out of control.

Also, LTOB favorite, Usain Bolt, is on the line against his countryman and former scaredy-cat Asafa Powell. I think we all know how this one's gonna end up.
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Scott Douglas breaks down the whole trials qualifying/Gouchergate melee quite effectively in his Running Times piece.

Article finally explains exactly how a few athletes approached the "process" of getting into the meet and how (not why), specifically, they were rebuffed.

If nothing else, you get an intimate snapshot of John Chaplin, the head honcho of the men's track and field executive committee. Among many other gems, states Chaplin: "Those clowns in the bottom half of the 10,000 have no chance on God’s green earth of making the Olympic team." Guy's a peach, huh?! More on him later today.
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A very good read on Jim Dunaway, hardcore track and field journalist who has been to every Olympics since 1956.

The best thing about Dunaway is that he used to hitchhike everywhere (He claims to have covered 500,000 miles in that most creepy way of transportation). Times have changed, huh, Jim? Oh, how I yearn for the days when a nice, nonhomicidal driver would see someone (like me) on the side of the road and want to give them (me) a ride somewhere, maybe even a snack or a cold cut sandwich, instead of honking and pointing. And covering their children's eyes. Oh, whimsy.
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Our new USATF CEO has skipped the middle man and gone straight to the top on his first day! Dear Mr. President...

ONIONS!

2 comments:

BNizzle said...

Ok the fact you know so much about Mean Girls actually gives you guys some props in my book. And the analogy is somewhat a stretch but works none the less.

Keep on rockin in the free world.

Jeremy said...

Tina Fey, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amy Poehler...

Now, I'm not someone who goes to see movies for the actors that are in them, but you'd be hard-pressed to put together a more appealing female foursome than the above, unless you were going for straight eye candy.