Photo of the Weekend: Stanford

Usain Bolt receives Photo of the Weekend honors this go-round, after ripping a 9.76 100m down in Kingston. And it wasn't just the fact that it was such a sick time -- doubly-so, considering how early in the year it was -- but the way he decimated the field... a fact hinted at in the photo to the left.

Receiving Runner-Up honors is a photo which is slightly less action-packed, but will surely be as talked-about... fresh off a new AR in the women's 10k, Shalane Flanagan was captured in a tabloid-worthy photograph....

(click to enlarge)

Yessir, that baby-bump -- which she clearly tried to hide under a bulky sweatsuit -- is going to be the fodder of message boards for weeks, nay, MONTHS to come.

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What They Didn't Tell You: Stanford

While everyone's gaze was turned to the Stanford Payton Jordan Time Trial out in the cool night air of California, there was some conference meet action back east. It made for a good weekend of action, with the following stories falling into the category of What They Didn't Tell You.

Shalane Flanagan rang up an American Record -- 30:34.49 -- in the 10k at Stanford, her first try at the distance. Taking notes Matt Tegenkamp?

Shalane's mark also got her a victory over Kiwi Kim Smith. And Banana, Chiquita. [ tugs shirt collar uncomfortably ]

Usain Bolt ran 9.76 for 100m, his best run in a distance other than 200m, and at a meet other than World Juniors. The knee-jerk message board reaction was, naturally, to assume he's been taking something. Matter of fact, I can confirm that he HAS been pumping his body full of a performance enhancing cocktail: Red Bull and Guinness. (No really, try it sometime. Apparently it's all the rage down in Jamaica.)

With all the hoopla at Stanford and around the country, one of the biggest upsets of the weekend went wholly unreported: that I housed former WR-holder Eamonn Coghlan in a local road race.

Unfortunately, in that same race, I got housed by a cadre of Ethiopians. With woman-parts.

And finally, we'd be remiss if we didn't at least give a tip of the cap to the hometown University of Cincinnati Bearcats who, just a few years removed from mid-major ignominy in the C-USA, managed to take 4th in the very, very tough Big East this weekend. What they didn't tell you, though, was that the UC coach lives on a street with a tree growing up out of the center of the road! No, really, it's true! It looks EXACTLY like this.

(Anyone with photographic evidence of this phenomenon is invited to post it below, or e-mail us.)

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Fearless Predictions: Stanford SuperMeet Edition

We here at Less Than Our Best are concerned with very little. One of those few interests is reading emails that your mother sent you. The other is acting like we have some expertise in predicting things. Here's a few things that will LITERALLY happen this weekend:


STANFORD PAYTON JORDAN

1) 1500 - Lomong, Lukezic. Solinsky, Sullivan, Symmonds. Tegenkamp. Those are their names in alphabetical order if you are wondering. If "T" came before "S" in the alphabet, it might also be their order of finish. Whhhooooaaa, freaky man. I bet all you stoner hippies out in California love that stuff, huh.
News Flash: "T" doesn't come before "S" so get over it.
Lomong will win this one in an even closer and faster race with Tegenkamp than in Arizona St. a few weeks ago. Sullivan will be right behind his ginger ally and Lukezic will barely pass the broad shoulders of Solinsky at the tape with Symmonds wilting to 6th over the last 150. Lomong in 3:38.

2) Steeple - After taunts of "why don't you drink a beer bong college boy" and "go back to the frat house college boy," from notorious post-collegiate unknowns, Max King and Thomas Brooks, notorious collegiate unknown Kyle Alcorn unleashes his college nerd rage into a 600 meter kick that thrills the crowd and sends King and Brooks back into the fame of their obscurity. Alcorn becomes the most famous of unknown steeplers. Alcorn in 8:28.

3) 5000 - 600 meters to go. Torres, Lagat, Carney, and Abdi have seperated themselves. Carney remembers that he left the ferris wheel running across the street, worries children may jump, checks off. 400 to go. Abdi rememebers that he is a 10k/marathoner now, can't quite match the knee-bend of the other two, slows down. 200 to go. Torres remembers that he is racing Lagat, accepts defeat. 100 to go, Lagat remembers to throw outDegeneration X 'suck it' sign as he crosses finish line. FloTrack is forced to actually edit something in their videos and blurs out finish due to "content standards" and "family values." No one wins. Lagat in 13:09.

4) 10,000 - In a duel tabbed "Australian balls vs. American pussies (and some European fancy-boys)" by the Australian press, Craig Mottram comes out guns-a-blazing in hopes of making Oceania proud. He clips the rabbit's heels for the entire first 5k and takes off after he finally gives up and pushes the rabbit out of the way. After a spicy next 3k where the Ball Buster gets serious seperation from the field, the pack of "pussies" led by Galen Rupp, the "head pussy" if you will, comes up on Mottram and finally catches him with 800 to go.
The "pussies" swallow up the "balls" and its left to a 400 meter showdown between Rupp and the Briton, Mo Farah. The Stanford crowd is beside themselves cheering against the evil British Empire, as is the American way, and Rupp throws in a scintilating final 100 meters to edge out Farah in what will be called the "best ever race on American soil" by Track and Field News in their June/July/August edition when everyone has already forgotten that this race ever happened (but they'll have good pictures!). Rupp in 27:21.

5) (Women's) 10,000 - Joke Teller: Ok, Kim Smith, Shalane Flanagan, and Kara Goucher walk into a bar...
Me: Wait. What bar? Is it close? Are they there now? Is there going to be dancing? Let's Go THERE NOW!
Joke Teller: No, it's a joke...
You don't want to hear the rest of that joke, it ends with me sobbing outside the "Blind Turkey Pub and Spirits" in Palo Alto with mace in my eyes, wondering what could have been.

***Seriously, can a guy write about a female sporting event without taking it down to this level. Yes, they are beautiful, intelligent young women but let's focus on their athletic accomplishments here and stop being such pigs. You disgust me, me.***

Anyway, this field is the most impressive of the night with easily the top two (non-Deena) female U.S. distance runners on the track in Kara Goucher and Shalane Flanagan, with Kim Smith thrown in their to keep it honest. Flanagan = Unstoppable. Goucher = Indestructible. We're all winners when these two forces meet. Flanagan in 31:01.

OHIO STATE JESSE OWENS

6) The "Payton Jordan of the Midwest" has a lot of great guys running. However, a mere mortal like me cannot make heads or tails out of who is running which race since many people are entered into multiple events. How can I predict a race's results when I don't know who is going to be in it? How can the fans get excited if I don't make predictions? I only have so much power, I AM ONLY ONE MAN! Sometimes the way track markets itself makes me so angry that I want to, I don't know, do a weekly podcast or something.

7) Brian Olinger vs. Josh McAdams in the steeple. Two all-american boys competing their little hearts out. Somehow I feel like this race is going to end with some scraped knees, a few dirty baseball uniforms, and someone's mom handing out cans of RC Cola. Olinger in 8:30.

OTHER STUFF

8) There is NOTHING else going on this weekend (especially after the CAVS finish off the wizards tonight).

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College Track Coach and Athlete Arrested

Palo Alto, California -- A college athlete and his coach were arrested last night on charges of falsifying official California state documents, according to Palo Alto police. The athlete, Anthony Sabatino, 22, and his coach, Woody Archibald, 47, from Oldstown State University in Ohio, flew into the Santa Clara County airport last night and were greeted by three uniformed policemen waiting to take them downtown.

"We had received word that they were providing false information on a document turned into Stanford University," said police spokesman Jerry Kind. "The state has decided to crack down hard on such incidents starting with the most heinous offenders."

The document in question was an entry form for Stanford University's "Payton Jordan Invitational." Sabatino and Archibald were in town to compete in the prestigious college track and field meet being held this weekend.

According to official records Sabatino was enterered into "section 2 of 5" in the 5000 meters event with a listed entry time of 13:52.85. There exists no official record of Sabatino ever running faster than 15:08.24 at the Stanford Invitational on April 4th of this year.

"When I ran that 15:08 I had been feeling sick all week and I led for, like, half the race," said Sabatino, who justifies the inflated entry time by claiming he is ready for a "big breakthrough" at Stanford this weekend. He cites a "monster 5 by 1000 meter workout" as proof that he is ready to run his listed entry time.

His coach agrees, "When Anthony ran his previous personal best, we hadn't yet started speedwork. He ran that 15:08 all off of base and tempo runs. We knew if we could get him in a heat with some guys running fast, who knows how fast he can run?"

Nevertheless, the new statewide crackdown on these offenses made the arrest inevitable.

The false time was initially identified by a nationwide watchdog group known simply as the LRCMB. The group meets on an internet "message board" to, among other things, point out and discuss infractions such as these. A representative from the LRCMB known on the board as "This is lame" sent a list of offenders to the Stanford meet director who made a decision on how to proceed from there.

"There is really no way for a meet director like me to know for sure when these athletes and coaches are lying," said Jay Landry, the meet's entry director. "I mean, these guys had unround numbers all the way to the hundredth of a second. Come on, how can you make that kind of stuff up?"

The "Payton Jordan Invitational" directors are planning to meet with other track and field meet directors across the state next week to come up with a plan to combat incidents like the one with Sabatino and Archibald. Ideas include using a new, high-tech searching device called "google" that is found on the "internet" to confirm if entry times match other official results.

There is no word yet on how long until the new plans will be set into place. For now, though, it is up to the LRCMB and other like-minded groups to point out offenders and bring them to justice.

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Pre-Nats to Answer Questions

Pre-Nats are tomorrow. Obviously. For those keenly interested in NCAA cross country, it is a chance to sort things out, to get a sense of the pecking order, to see where the chips fall, to align all cosmic aspects of the universe. Who knew such grand things could take place in humble, smelly Terre Haute, Indiana not once but TWICE a year? There's been sniping that the configuration of teams in each race will merely rehash some matchups from earlier in the year. But clearly, these folks have been overlooking the fact that the meet organizers had a greater goal, answering, for once, for all, that age old trivia question: How many Division 1 schools have a nickname that neither ends in the letter 'S' nor includes a color, and WHICH ONE IS THE BEST AT CROSS COUNTRY? Predictions after the jump.

After Saturday, I will finally be able to sleep soundly, for the stars have truly aligned for us. SIX of the very small handful of colorless, S-less D1 athletic teams will toe the line in the SAME race. How can you not be excited for this? It's at least as big of a deal as Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson teaming up to make a Starsky and Hutch movie. Blue race, your cup truly runneth over. Here is where I see the noble trailblazers of nicknamedom across our country shaking out after this weekend:

1. Stanford Cardinal - Cardinal period. Not a bunch of the birds.
2. NC State Wolfpack - A great name for a cross country team.
3. Notre Dame Fighting Irish - Why no backlash over this racist, racist name?
4. William & Mary Tribe - A classy institution, with the classiest of Indian-themed nicknames.
5. Syracuse Orangemen - Doesn't count as a color; it is the very essence of that little, round man.
6. Navy Midshipmen - Not at Pre-Nats, but they could hold their own there.
7. UMass Minutemen - Nobody likes a Minuteman. Probably why they're skipping Pre-Nats.
8. Illinois Fighting Illini - On this list only until PC lobbyists bring them to their knees.
9. Bucknell Bison - Also too cool for the Blue Race.
10. Georgia Tech Ramblin' Wreck - What's that you say? Yellow Jackets? Sorry, buster - that's their mascot.

So there you have it. It's really pretty staggering how good, on a regional and national level, most of these teams are. In other words, if you want to have a cross country powerhouse, you could hire a pied-piper coach. You could recruit a bunch of international studs. Or you could just lobby your Athletic Department to lop that S off the end of your school's nickname. Simple as that. Finally, by my calculations, there are just three other schools with D1 Cross to share this little quirk. Can anyone name them? Anyone? Bueller?

Oh, and Stanford doesn't really count because Cardinal IS a color. But I'm going to keep pretending otherwise.

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