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Sunday, April 22, 2007

Boston / London Marathons

WCSN had live coverage of the London Marathon this morning. It would have required getting up around 3 a.m. to see it--which I have done to see live Olympic coverage, but a single marathon doesn't quite rise to that level. Besides, I was tired from last night's Village People concert. You gotta have priorities!

For London info, Let's Run had a live blow-by-blow thread, and Athletics Weekly has a nice write-up. The main buzz is that Geb droped out and Ryan Hall more or less lived up to billing (seventh, sandwiched between WR holder Paul Tergat and NYC champ Marilson Gomes dos Santos, less than a minute behind the winner).

By now you surely know what happened in Boston. Cold, rain, headwind. Runners in packs until late in the race. Cheruyiot wins again, Prokopcuka second again, both took large leads in the World Marathon Majors standings which they are likely to keep.

My thoughts on the Versus coverage? Well, a marathon broadcast is one giant waiting game, and so there has to be either a lot of filler or relatively brainless chatter or both. I still believe Carol Lewis should be given a restraining order keeping her at least 100 feet from a microphone, and Larry Rawson has to drop the wierd comparisons like a shoe that weighs the same as three slices of bread. On the other hand, they had a really good race to work with and managed to transmit the excitement.

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