Day 3 Review

Results
IAAF Review
Sports Illustrated review
USATF report
USA Today notebook

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

It's really frustrating that Versus makes us wait until 7 PM to see events that completed almost ten hours previously. On the other hand, the coverage was about as good as this crew has ever done. The men's hammer and triple jumps got great coverage; the 10k wasn't given short shrift; and they conveyed the tension of the women's 100 meters.

Event-by event reactions...

Men's Hammer final: No, Murofushi did not deserve the pre-meet hype he was given. The medals went pretty much according to the form of the season so far.

Women's Steeple final: This evolving event looks like it will be Russia versus Kenya for the forseeable future.

Men's Triple Jump: They said this was wide-open and they were right. Win or lose, Gregorio is fun to watch.

Men's 1500m semis: Lagat is a cool customer and always has been; Webb looked shellshocked. I don't want to jump on the anti-Webb bandwagon (I'm sure it's been going for a good 13 hours now) but it seems as though he's suffered from a crisis of confidence ever since his lone track season in Ann Arbor went poorly. His over-celebration after major victories this year struck me less as venting his frustrations of the last few years and more as windows into his thoughts--and those thoughts are "this is an upset because I'm not the top dog" instead of "I'm the best fucker here and all of you can kiss my ass". Champions absolutely must have the latter going through their minds.

Oh, and there's no freakin' way Rashid Ramzi should be able to race like this in his first meet of the year.

Women's 400m semis: This looks wide-open, with the strong possibility that Ana Guevara will win the final. If you're looking for a pick-up in the fantasy league you might give her a shot.

Men's 10k final: Let's Run called Sihine the most underappreciated runner in the world. They were right. For a while there I thought he might pull it off.

Women's 100 meters: Hey, what is this? I wanted a close race! Yikes. But I called it, didn't I? And another 100 points into my fantasy league totals.