Welcome to the last Diamond League meet of the season! This took place over two days in Brussels, Belgium. Recall that the entire Diamond League season has been set up as a series of invitational meets that lead to this final invitational meet. In each previous meet, the winner gets 8 points and then you subtract a point for place behind until eighth place gets 1 point. All of the accumulated regular season points determine who makes this meet. To qualify for the final, you have to make the top six in the field events, top eight for 100m-800m and the top ten for 1500m and long distance events (read: 3000m steeplechase and 5000m). The meet is also allowed to invite 4 global wildcards (2 men, 2 women) and a national wildcard. For example, Jakob Ingebrigtsen received a wildcard in the men's 1500m as he did not automatically qualify. You can read about wild cards here.
It's sort of an invitational and sort of a championship (a secret third thing if you will?). There are victors and prize money, but there are also pacers and that is not usually a thing in professional championship racing. That said, this meet got a bit spicy and that's not even including Kenny Bednarek! There were some big challenges, some physicality in racing, and hot comments on the mic.
If you want to watch the full meet, FloTrack posted two different full livestreams on YouTube for each of the two days. You can view the September 4th livestream here and the September 5th livestream here. With that in mind, let's get into some of the big events that happened in Brussels.
What's Happening:The first pacer takes the field through ~55.45 at 400, ~1:52.00 at 800. The field loses contact with the first pacer and the wavelights after the second pacer unexpectedly falls off and drops out at around 900m. The first pacer drops out around 1000m and Jakob takes over the lead. With 300m to go, it becomes a 3 way battle between Nuguse, Koech, and Jakob until the final straightaway when Myers makes a pass to win in a time of 3:30.16.
Callout: This was ~messy.~
We have yet another case of pacer drama. What makes this pacer drama unique is we have Ingebrigtsen being not afraid to say something. He had a few choice words to say about the field here and then he apologized and doubled down on the blame for the pacers on Cole Hocker specifically as one of the pacers was Cole Hocker's training partner, Christian Jackson. It's worth mentioning that the decision to have Jackson be the pacer was not a last minute decision but one that was known in advance.
Beyond the shots at Hocker, a lot of Jakob's frustration seems to have come down to him taking over the pace at the 1000m mark and getting outkicked. You can tell that Jakob loves racing as he is still willing to dive at the line even for a 4th place finish! He seems to care just as much about a 4th place as he does a 1st.
It's also worth calling out how physical this race gets in the last 300. Notice how Koech's elbow catches Nuguse. The Goose may need to get some cross training at a boxing gym.
Definitions: "Goose" refers to Yared Nuguse. "Kick" refers to a finishing sprint.
What's Happening: After the field is paced by two pacers,Klaudia Kazimierska wins in a dramatic kick to set a meeting record and world leading time of 3:54.05.
Callout: This is a big upset against multiple world medalists in a very fast time! Suffice to say this is a very big moment for Kazimierska and bodes well for her going into next year. While this race gets out very fast, it does not string out.
The key here is contact. The field stays bunched together and eventually lets the pacers go at ~around 800 meters. Kazimierska may have been off the back, but her ability to keep contact sets her up to make up a lot of ground and be in a prime position to outkick the rest of the field.
Definitions:
"Meeting Record" is just the formal version of "meet record." It's the best performance in a specific event for a certain meet's history. "Kick" refers to a finishing sprint.
What's Happening:There is an initial false start and a second gun that goes off due to Bromell's reaction time. After they are called back, Bromell receives the green card and is allowed to compete in the restart. At about halfway, Seville catches up to Coleman's fast start and outleans Eseme to win in a time of 9.90.
Callout: We have another false start situation. They eventually show on the screen that Bromell's sensors had him with a reaction time of 0.072, under the limit of 0.10. And based on the replay, it looked like he knew he was cutting it close. That said, the card system is largely at the discretion of the officials and they seemed to give him the benefit of the doubt here.
In the race that follows, we do see an understandably more cautious start from Bromell. We also see a fast start out of Coleman, which is his usual move. But notice how he gets swallowed up in the second half of the race. He accelerates fast in a short distance, but remember that the 100m is also a game of speed endurance and that can be challenging to minimize deceleration when you hit your top speed earlier.
Definitions:
"False start" refers to leaving the starting blocks before the gun fires. The technical line that they draw is having a reaction time of 0.10 from the start. This is based on the logic that any reaction time faster than that is the result of an athlete anticipating the starting gun as opposed to reacting to it.
"Reaction Time" refers to the time between the gun firing and the sprinter leaving the starting blocks. It's based on the pressure sensors in the starting blocks.
"Green card" is what an official will give an athlete when there is a "false start" situation that they deem is not the fault of the athlete. It could be a technical problem with the pressure sensors in the starting blocks, for example.
What's Happening: After an initial challenge from Kayla White coming off the bend, Alfred digs deep to catch White and decisively win in a time of 21.79.
Callout: This is a rare challenge to Alfred from someone not named Shericka Jackson or Melissa Jefferson-Wooden this season! It's worth mentioning that Kayla White is having a pretty solid year and she's no stranger to success. She did win in a surprise victory in the 200m at Lausanne earlier this year and she was part of a world championship 4x100.
It's also worth considering the role that the lanes play here. The traditional view is that middle curves are the most ideal for running the 200 meters because the turns are not that tight and you have better visibility into your opponents. The outer lanes do have the benefit of less restrictive curves, but they also lack visibility. All of this to say that it is possible that Alfred couldn't fully gauge White's position until the straightaway and then responded accordingly.
What's Next
The next meet will be the World Athletics Ultimate Championships, the last meet of the season! It will be held September 11-13. You can stream it on Peacock and on NBC. If you want to follow along with more track and field observations or bad puns between now and then, you can follow me at @predamame on Twitter. See you then!
Welcome to the last Diamond League meet of the season! This took place over two days in Brussels, Belgium. Recall that the entire Diamond League season has been set up as a series of invitational meets that lead to this final invitational meet. In each previous meet, the winner gets 8 points and then you subtract a point for place behind until eighth place gets 1 point. All of the accumulated regular season points determine who makes this meet. To qualify for the final, you have to make the top six in the field events, top eight for 100m-800m and the top ten for 1500m and long distance events (read: 3000m steeplechase and 5000m). The meet is also allowed to invite 4 global wildcards (2 men, 2 women) and a national wildcard. For example, Jakob Ingebrigtsen received a wildcard in the men's 1500m as he did not automatically qualify. You can read about wild cards here.
It's sort of an invitational and sort of a championship (a secret third thing if you will?). There are victors and prize money, but there are also pacers and that is not usually a thing in professional championship racing. That said, this meet got a bit spicy and that's not even including Kenny Bednarek! There were some big challenges, some physicality in racing, and hot comments on the mic.
If you want to watch the full meet, FloTrack posted two different full livestreams on YouTube for each of the two days. You can view the September 4th livestream here and the September 5th livestream here. With that in mind, let's get into some of the big events that happened in Brussels.