Brussels Golden League Review

Results
IAAF recap
AP wirestory

A WR by Defar, while Richards and Isinbayeva stay alive in the jackpot race.

Event-by-event...

Men's 100: In the absence of any other big stars, Powell won convincingly: 9.84 into a 0.3 m/s headwind. This is probably the second-best race he's ever run.

Men's 200: Spearmon took it to Carter and Bolt on the turn and was never challenged, winning by a wide margin in 19.88.

Men's 800: Kenyan David Lekuta Rudisha, called the "dark horse" of the race by the meet director, took almost a full second off his PR for a clear win over tour leaders Mulaudzi, Kamel and Ali. Borzakovskiy ran like crap back in sixth.

Men's 1500: Daniel Kipchirchir Komen swept past a failing Rashid Ramzi in the last lap. Other than these two, no big names were entered save Asbel Kiprop, who finished third from last.

Men's Steeple: Paul Kipsiele Koech has won pretty much everything this year except the Kenyan Trials, which then kept him out of the World Championships. In what was described as a solo run, he took the yearly lead down to 7:58.80 to defeat World champ Kipruto, who himself ran a PR (8:02.89).

Men's 5000: This might be the race of the night. The unknown star, Seleshi Sihine, outsprinted Eliud Kipchoge to win by a mere 0.22 seconds (12:50.16); Osaka bronze-medalist Moses Kipsiro set a national record in third. The top seven were all under 13 minutes, but Tegenkamp looks like he might be past his peak as he "only" registered 13:07.41 way back in 11th.

Men's 10,000: It was supposed to be a record attempt, but it didn't take all that long for Bekele to figure out it wasn't happening. Then relative unknown Moses Masai started gaining on him and with two laps to go Bekele led by only 10 meters. Of course, Bekele pulled away for the win--he hasn't been beaten in the 10k in over 4 years--but it was an actual race. The first four all broke 27 minutes. Video

Men's 110H: Dayron Robles, 13.21, over most of the top Americans (except Trammell). In third, Allen Johnson continues to amaze; remember, he was Olympic Champ when Bob Dole was running for president!

Men's Triple Jump: Walter Davis continued his post-Osaka success, beating back a field that included all the top jumpers (Evora, Gregorio, Wilson).

Men's Javelin: Pitkämäki won on his final throw, Thorkildsen again in second. Those two have been first and second in every Golden League meet this summer.

Women's 100: Like in Osaka, Campbell came out the winner. Unlike Osaka, even Mr. Magoo could have picked the winner--0.11 seconds back were Arron and Edwards.

Women's 200: National hero Kim Gevaert's victory resulted in a "cacophony of noise". Second was Edwards, doubling back from the 100.

Women's 400: The field was fairly deep, including most of the Osaka stars save Ohuruogu. Sanya Richards left them all more than a second in arrears for a new seasonal best of 49.29. Video

Women's Mile: This was supposed to be a clash between Osaka gold- and silver-medalists. They did take places one and two, but it wasn't even remotely close; Jamal put four seconds on Soboleva in the final lap for a new Asian record (4:17.75), albeit for a rarely-run distance.

Women's 2 mile: Meseret Defar's world record 8:58.58 made her the hero of the night. How does this mark stack up? It's worth roughly 8:18.7, which would be the best mark ever made outside of the suspicious 1993 Chinese National Games. In other words, it deserves much more attention than it likely will get.

Women's 100H: Susanna Kallur stretched her Golden League win streak to two, the same length as Michelle Perry's third-place streak. Ennis-London just nipped the American for second. Video

Women's High Jump: Vlasic appears unbeatable this year. Her card was clean through the winning height of 2.03 and then she took three more shots at a WR height of 2.10.

Women's Pole Vault: The results make it look closer than it was; both Isinbayeva and Feofanova cleared 4.80 but the former did it on her first attempt versus the latter doing it on her third. Still, the jackpot was very much in jeopardy.