Weekly Awards

The performance of the week happened earlier today when Ivan Ukhov cleared 7' 9 1/4" (2.37m) at the first leg of the Moravia High Jump Tour. Ukhov is best known for his discovery a few years ago at Lausanne that Red Bull does not, in fact, give you wings...when you mix it with vodka. That was a one-off occurrence (his girlfriend had just dumped him) and he should be known for his jumping--currently he's #1 in the high jump in my world rankings system.

A close second was Spain's Sergio Sánchez, who broke a 23-year-old European record when he ran 4:52.90 for the odd 2000-meter distance. The only other marks of note were Christian Cantwell's 69' 11 1/4" (21.32m) and Nadine Kleinert's 62' 10 1/4" (19.16m), both at the Nordhausen shot put competition.

The competition of the week is the women's race at the Kenya Police Cross Country Championships, where two defending world champions faced off: Vivian Cheruyiot (5k) handily beat Linet Masai (10k) with an emphatic last half-mile, while Berlin's 4th-place 10k runner Grace Momanyi was relegated to third. Runner-up goes to the men's competition at the above-mentioned high jump tour event in Hustopece, Czech Republic. The field featured seven of the world's top twenty high jumpers (as determined by my world rankings).