Day 2 Review

Results
IAAF review
USATF report
Sports Illustrated review
USA Today notebook

My thoughts on the second day of the World Championships...

Yesterday I ran down CBC's announcers a bit. Today I want to talk up their producers and program directors. While their on-air talent are a little bland and and sometimes less than brilliant (today Whitman called a 20.54-meter throw a "world-leading time"), the network does a great job of simply putting a lot on the screen. They got around to covering the women's 10k today and showed us just what happened to Turinesh Dibaba (at 6k she was tripped, partly lost her shoe and put it back on). Over the heptathlon's two days they gave deeper coverage which builds tension a little more like actually being there.

Canada's lack of metric-phobia allows CBC to make good use of the IAAF's field-event feed but NBC/Versus is apparently terrified of anything with a decimal and avoids the host feed like the plague. Today, NBC's coverage of the women's shot was limited to a single put, while CBC gave the event the attention it deserved.

Overall grades: CBC gets an A- from shot put extra credit, NBC gets a B- for blowing off the assignment.

Individual event reactions...

Men's 20k Walk: Umm, you were on the edge of your seat for this one, right? I feel like a sucker for missing out on an Ecuadorean gold medal in the fantasy league.

Women's Heptathlon: The naysayers thought Kluft might lose and certainly didn't think she'd break 7000 points, let alone her European record. Whoops.

Men's 400H semis: Not going according to form. Bershawn Jackson doesn't make the final, Marek Plawgo and Adam Kunkel lead late in their races. Now the final will be a two-man show, James Carter versus Felix Sanchez.

Women's 800m semis: T&FN favorite Olga Kotlyarova did not look like a champ, finishing second in her heat and then lying down on the track to gasp for air. Janeth Jepkosgei did look like one, running a world leader and calmly walking into the mixed zone as if she'd just gone for a jog in the park. Since I've already got a Kenyan in the fantasy league plus Maria Mutola , if I were looking for an athlete in this race to pick up I'd go with Hasna Benhassi.

Men's 100m: Thrilling. They say first and second in the final are almost always the two semifinal winners, and when Atkins beat Powell in their semi I thought that rule would go out the window. I'll let the video do the talking:



Women's Shot Put: Doubtless the event of the day. First off, heavy favorite Nadyesa Ostapchuk barely got into the final. Then she took the lead on her first throw, then fouled on three of her next four. Valerie Vili moved up to second on her fifth-round throw, then unleashed the world leader on her final attempt. Ostapchuk countered with her best of the year and came up just six centimeters short. What I found most interesting was that the other competitors who appeared on screen (Nadine Kleinert and Chiara Rosa, I think) looked truly excited that Vili won...or maybe that Ostapchuk lost? I don't know, and maybe I'm reading too much into this.