Pre Classic

The 2006 Prefontaine Classic IAAF Grand Prix was held yesterday, and did not disappoint. For a little background, the Pre Classic is a world class track & field meet that is sponsored by Nike. What makes it world class, aside from being held at Hayward Field, the Mecca of track & field, but in Nike's contracts with all of its athletes, it requires them to compete in this meet. Nike being the leader in track & field, it has the best athletes under contract, so they all compete here. This makes for one exciting track meet.





The full results are posted on the website, click this image to see them, but I'll give you some highlights.

First off, it was definitely wet, rain off and on (dumping when on), wind was legal but still blowing, and it was cold. Not ideal racing conditions, but the meet went on.

The headliner race was the 100 meter dash between co-world record holders (9.77) Justin Gatlin (USA) and Asafa Powell (Jamaica). The event promoters, or so I hear, didn't have enough money to pay for these 2 in the same race, so they were split into 2 seperate heats. Yeah, I know. They will be racing together later this year though. Anyways, each ran fast times. Gatlin came away with the faster of the 2 with a 9.88 (tying the Pre Classic record), and Powell ran a 9.93.

The 110M high hurdles went as expected, with Olympic gold medalist Liu Xiang (China) winning it in a blazing 13.21 seconds, the fastest in the world this year.

The shot put was amazing. Christian Cantwell (USA) won it will a beefy toss of 72-9.

The triple jump was the most exciting event of the day. There arose a duel between Walter Davis (USA) and Nathan Douglas (Great Britain). On his second to last attempt, Davis jumped a huge 56-2, taking the lead. Then Douglas, on his last attempt, leaped 56-7.5 (a Pre Classic record), puting him in the lead with only 1 jumper left. That jumper of course was Davis, who exploded to a 57-1 on his final jump to win the event, and set a new Pre Classic record in the process.

Finally, the traditional last event: The Bowerman Mile. Bernard Lagat (USA) won the event in a time of 3:51.53, which is the fastest time in the world this year. Alex Kipchirchir (Kenya) followed right behind in 3:51.71, and Rashid Ramzi (Bahrain) placed third in 3:52.39. These are the second and third fastest times in the world this year. In all, 9 runners broke 4 minutes, and it would have been 10 if Alan Webb didn't cramp up in the last 150 meters (still finished: 4:00.87)

A great day on the track, and a very exciting meet.