IAAF World Championships

The IAAF World Championships are in progress right now for track and field. They're being held in Moscow, Russia. The same country as the 2014 winter Olympics are going to be held next year. I happened to turn on the TV and saw briefly some of the men's decathlon. The decathlon for those who have never heard of it before (I hadn't until the London games last year) is an contest containing ten events : 100 meters, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400 meters, 110 meter hurtles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin throw, and 1500 meters. It's held over two days, five the first day and five the second, depending on how the competitors place scores are given to them. So after all events the guy with the most points wins. Ashton Eaton, who won gold at the 2012 games in London, won gold Sunday in Moscow with a score of 8809. There were three other Americans entered in the decathlon, Trey Hardee, Jeremy Taiwo, and Gunnar Nixon. Hardee and Taiwo did not finish;  while Nixon who lead for part of day one fell too 13th with 8312 points. Pretty good for Nixon who was at junior worlds last year.

Usain Bolt is still the fastest man in the 100 meters. In the finals there were four Jamaicans, two Americans, a British guy, and a Frenchmen. That sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.. Bolt had hard competition with American Justin Gatlin. Leaving the blocks Gatlin seemed to have the lead but Bolt surged a head. Only a .8 second difference between them finishing, compared to the .10 second gap between second and third place.The Jamaicans finish 1, 3, 4, and 5. The other American came up in the back in 6 narrowly beating the Frenchmen by .02 of a second. The 200 meters finals took place last night and Bolt took home another gold.

Sadly American sprinter, Allyson Felix is out; possibly for the season. During the 200 meter dash, rounding the turn Felix began to hop before falling to the track in agony. She had torn her right hamstring. Ending her hope of meddling at Worlds. Felix had planned to race in three events, the 200, 4x100, and 4x400. The injury is sever, but is it season ending? Possibly but she'll just have to wait and see. I feel bad for her, at worlds feeling good about the race about to hit her stride when this happens. I hate to see any athlete out because of an injury but when it happens at such a major event, on a world stage, it sucks even more.

For a link to the IAAF site for more information click on the link under the 'League Pages' in the side bar.

Football is Back

It would have been really nice to have added a seventh Cup to the list but it just wasn't the right time. Myself and all other Boston hockey fans will just have to wait. We couldn't have lost to a better team. Literally, the Blackhawks were the 'best' this year. They took the Cup home in six games: 4-3 (CH), 2-1 (B), 2-0 (B), 6-5 (CH), 3-1 (CH), 3-2 (CH). Three of those games ending in overtime, if you account for all the overtimes it makes five since the first game took three overtimes to decide a winner. Congrats Chicago.

One a side note the Washington Capitals open their season against the Blackhawks. Isn't that lovely.


Well football's already back. The NFL kicked off this past weekend. The Patriots and Redskins won their games. The Steelers lost theirs to the Giants. All three teams look pretty good considering this is a time to try guys out and see how they are in real games not just practices. Now time to talk about the elephant in the room; Tim Tebow. I saw a few online articles stating that Tebow proved yet again that he is not a NFL quarterback. I will wait to pass judgment on Tebow for a bit because:  1) How much did he actually play as a quarterback in New York with the Jets? So he hasn't really had the chance to be a NFL quarterback in almost a year. 2) You can only accomplish so much in practice and training camp. He needs more time to adjust to the playing style of New England. 3) He is somewhere deep down still the quarterback that brought the Denver Broncos into the playoffs two seasons ago. I'll wait and see how he turns out but I still think there's some hope for him in New England.


Baseball is still happening. Sometimes you forget it's happening since the summer days are long and filled with fun. And baseball runs from May to October. The Nationals aren't so hot these days; only winning 5 of the last 10 games they've had. One bright note, Stephen Strasburg played his first full game of his MLB career. It was a sweep 6-0 of the Philadelphia Phillies. He stayed in and played all 9 innings. Impressive for a guy who normally comes out earlier in the game.


The last story for today takes us to the golf world. Tiger lost whatever stride he was on; coming in the very back of the scoring with 4 over par in the PGA Championships. Rory McIlroy improved and end with 3 under par. Jason Dufner came in at the end of the day -10 under par. Not too shabby for a guy who blew it two years ago.