Superfan Daily: What's On the Weekend

Highlight meet of the weekend
The Bupa Great Edinburgh International Cross Country, an IAAF Cross Country Permit meet, will be held in the Scottish capital’s Holyrood Park on Saturday.  The course, a version of the 2008 World Championships course, uses the famous Arthur's Seat. There may be ways to see the BBC coverage online; watch this space for updates when I get them.

1:07 PM local time (8:07 AM Eastern): Men’s International 4.2k
This is the race Let’s Run is calling the “Varsity” race, as it’s significantly deeper than the featured team race. Entries include Eliud Kipchoge (World #5 at 5k), Asbel Kiprop (World #1 at 1500m), Arturo Casado (European 1500m champ) and Brimin Kipruto (World steeplechase #4) as well as home favorite miler Tom Lancashire (2006 NCAA runner-up at FSU).

1:25 PM local time (8:25 AM Eastern): Women’s International 5.7k
This race is the deepest of the day, loaded with Linet Masai (World 10k champ), Vivian Cheruiyot (World 5k champ), Tirunesh Dibaba (5k World Record holder), Jessica Augusto (European XC champ) and Milcah Chemos (World steeplechase champ), plus home favorites Steph Twell, Charlotte Purdue, Emma Pallant, Hattie Dean and Liz Yelling.

1:55 PM local time (8:55 AM Eastern): Men’s International Team Challenge 8k
This is a three-way team competition between teams from the UK, USA and Europe. Let’s Run is calling it the “JV” race, but I think the team competition is making it the more interesting of the two men’s races.  Teams have nine runners and the first six for each score.

Leading the way for the home team is Mo Farah. Chris “Tommo” Thompson was supposed to run but pulled out with injury. The best of Farah’s supporting cast is Frank Tickner and Andy Vernon.

The European team’s leader is nine-time Euro XC champ Sergey Lebid of Ukraine. He’s helped by Ayad Lamdassen (Spain), this year’s Euro XC silver medalist, as well as Youssef El Kalai (Portugal), the bronze medalist. In fact, six of the top ten at the Euro XC are competing.

The USA appears to have the deepest team, with Galen Rupp as the star. Dathan Ritzenhein was supposed to compete but pulled out citing an ankle injury. Behind him are Ed Moran, Stephen Furst (fresh off a course record at the Emerald Nuts Midnight Run), Scott Bauhs (5th at the BOClassic 10k) and Nick Arciniaga.

Race website
Previews: The Scotsman / IAAF / Team USA / Athletics Weekly / Eurosport / BBC


Other Meets
There will be two pro-level cross country meets in Spain on Sunday, the Cross Internacional del Calzado in Toledo and the Cross Internacional Zornotza in Amorebieta.
RFEA website

The seventh meet in the KCB/Athletics Kenya cross country series will be run on Saturday in Iten.
Athletics Kenya website
Daily Nation preview

There will be two early-season indoor meets in Russia this weekend, the Christmas Starts in Yekaterinburg on Friday and the Christmas Cup in Moscow on Sunday.  The first of the two meets will see Andrey Silnov versus Aleksandr Shustov in the high jump.
Russian Athletics website

Colleges
On Friday, Oklahoma and Ole Miss are at Arkansas for a tri-meet.
LIVE blog / LIVE results / Men's promo / Women's promo

Iowa is at Illinois for a men’s-only dual meet.
Heat sheets / Promo

All the rest

Track on TV
Endurance, Friday at 11:35 AM on FLiX
Bud Greenspan Presents: Beijing 2008 - America's Olympic Glory, Saturday at 10:30 AM on SHO EXTREME
Athens 2004: Stories of Olympic Glory, Saturday at 9:00 PM on Universal Sports (reruns at midnight)

Yesterday's Results
Cross Country Internazionale Campaccio (San Giorgio su Legnano ITA) EAA Permit
Tiberias International Marathon (Tiberias ISR)

News Links
Runner's World's Racing News has all the headlines.

Lineups for a few Millrose Games events have been announced, and they are good. The men's 60 had just about the best athletes available, and the women's 60 is decent too. Recall that both are being scored as a USA-Jamaica dual meet. There's also a new "Millrose Multi Challenge" pitting five top American decathletes against each other in a hurdle/high jump/shot put competition--Bryan Clay, Trey Hardee, Ashton Eaton, Jake Arnold and Curtis Beach.

Britain's Athletics Weekly magazine rolled out a completely redesigned website. It's sweet.

Preseason computer rankings from the coaches' association have Florida (men) and Oregon (women) as the #1 teams. Texas A&M's hopes for a men's title are severely curtailed by the surprise announcement yesterday that Curtis Mitchell, the Aggie's defending NCAA champ at 200 meters, has decided to forego his senior season and join the professional ranks. TAMU head coach Pat Henry sounds pissed off about it.

Flotrack has announced its indoor coverage schedule, with 20 meets and four FloLive webcasts. It kicks off next weekend with The Dual (Michigan at Ohio State), which I'll be seeing the old-fashioned InPersonLive way.

No link, but Alan Webb has been announced as opening his season with a mile race in New York on January 22.  That could only be the New Balance meet at the Armory.  2011 marks the tenth anniversary of him breaking 4:00 at the same site as a high schooler.

Olympic Preview: Multi-Events

The ninth in our series of Olympic previews examines the heptathlon and decathlon.

Decathlon
The Schedule: Thursday Aug 21, Friday Aug 22
The Americans: Bryan Clay, Trey Hardee, Tom Pappas
The Contenders: Roman Šebrle (CZE), Maurice Smith (JAM), Andrei Kravchenko (BLR) Dmitry Karpov (KAZ)
The Stats: Records, 2008 List, 2007 Worlds, 2004 Olympics
The Medal Picks: T&FN - Clay, Kravchenko, Karpov; SI - Clay, Smith, Seberle
The Story: Clay's performance at the Olympic Trials made him an overwhelming favorite. Finally putting some injuries behind him, he scored 8832 points, the world's highest in three years. That previous best? 8732, at the '05 Worlds...by Bryan Clay. In fact, he has three of the best four totals in the last four years and won the heptathlon at this year's World Indoor championships. He is a strong favorite to improve on his Athens silver medal to gold.

World Record holder Roman Šebrle won that gold medal, as well as last year's World Championships, and appears to be the only athlete capable of defeating Clay (as opposed to Clay defeating himself). He's getting a bit long in the tooth and pulled out of a decathlon earlier this year citing injury, but underestimating him would be a mistake. Last year he made a quick recovery after being hit in the shoulder with a javelin--a few inches in another direction and it would have been instantaneously fatal.

Others to watch are Kravchenko, World Indoor silver medalist and the European Cup champion; Smith, last year's surprise Worlds silver medalist who has warned of more surprises in Beijing; and Karpov, a seemingly perennial bronze medalist.