Big Gateshead Energy
the return of the Diamond League + NCAA action heats up (thoughts from the broadcast booth at Big 12s)
Mondo Duplantis holds an umbrella for his friend and fellow pole vaulter Sam Kendricks at the Diamond League Gateshead meeting on Sunday, May 23. Screenshot via YouTube.
Big Gateshead Energy here in Texas lately — it’s barely stopped raining since I got back to Austin last week from Manhattan, Kansas, where I spent a few days in the broadcast booth at K State commentating the Big 12 Outdoor Championships (which you can still watch here on ESPN+), and the forecast looks similarly dicey this weekend for both of the NCAA regional competitions in College Station, Texas and Jacksonville, Florida.
There was Big Gateshead Energy (here defined as the gale force winds and torrential downpour of last weekend’s Diamond League Gateshead meeting, as northeast England is perhaps a lovely place to visit but not the loveliest place to host a track meet in late May) in Kansas last weekend, too, where the final day of competition was moved up an entire four hours from 3 p.m. to 11 a.m. in an effort to avoid any rain delays postponing the meet late into the night. Surprisingly, the worst casualty of the weekend (beyond an 11 p.m. men’s 10K) was the timing equipment, which (surprise!) doesn’t mix well with rain and resulted in several races being restarted (including, most tragically, the men’s 110m hurdles final, which saw several competitors actually finish the race the first time around).
Silencing the haters? Wesley Kiptoo of Iowa State is simply the best distance runner in Big 12 history, pictured here without his signature black gloves — which he races in, rain or shine. In Kansas, it was rain. A lot of rain. Photo via Iowa State Athletics.
Wesley Kiptoo puts the gloves on
Iowa State’s Wesley Kiptoo proved that he is another planet from the rest of the Big 12 (and most of the NCAA) by not only sweeping the 10K, 5K and 3K steeplechase, but setting Big 12 meet records in all three events: 28:22.98 in the 10K, 8:31.82 in the steeple and 13:29.92 in the 5K. The steeplechase and 5K marks also set facility records at Kansas State.
How crazy was this performance? Here’s an entire thread of people trying to remember literally any other athlete sweeping three distance events at a power five conference championship. He’s the first athlete in Big 12 history to win all three.
Not to mention that you don’t actually need to “run fast” as much as close fast to put 10 points on the board at conference if you’re as good as Kiptoo is — but he won the 10K by 25 seconds (over his teammate…Edwin Kurgat…himself the 2019 NCAA XC champ…let that sink in) after going out in 4:20 for the first 1600m (and 62 for the quarter); he also won the steeple by 14 seconds and the 5K by 14 seconds. This isn’t “running to win” folks… this is running to dominate.
Kiptoo is a lot of fun to watch because he never hesitates to take the pace out hard. That Prefontaine-like strategy doesn’t always work in his favor but it certainly makes things interesting. Now we just have to hope that Iowa State can get him some media training so he’ll throw us a bone the next time he decides to make track history… see meme by pro Puma runner Steven Fahy.
(As the interviewer here, I can’t even be mad… if I set three Big 12 meet records in one weekend, I would do the same and English is my first (only) language).
“Tower stays lit” — @TexasLonghorns
The Longhorns make us forget that anyone else is in the Big 12
I’ve covered the Big 12 enough times at this point to know that a major storyline of the weekend always becomes: how many points can Texas score? The Longhorns really outdid themselves in Kansas, as both the men and women took home team titles and — combined with their sweep of the Big 12 Indoor titles — became the fifth combined program in Big 12 history to complete the indoor/outdoor gender sweep. Of course, three of the other sweeps were also completed by Texas, in 1999, 2006 and 2015 (Nebraska is the only other team to do it in 2000). The women’s point total of 207 points set a new meet record and beat K State by almost 100 points.
Of course, the Longhorns are a team with NCAA title aspirations, and they have the tools to do it — hopefully on a better weather day than what we got in Kansas. Here’s a few highlights, and you can read my full recap in the Austin American-Statesman.
Tara Davis — It took a single attempt from the collegiate record holder to win the long jump, as Davis recorded a stunning 6.97m/22-10.5 to win in meet and facility record fashion. What seemed like mere moments later, she won her 100-meter hurdles prelim in 12.90, then came back the next day to win the final in horrible conditions in 13.02 over a stacked field that included 60-meter hurdles NCAA champion Ackera Nugent of Baylor.
With the Olympics around the corner, Davis is breaking out at just the right time. “When she was a baby, they must have dropped her in a big cup of coffee,” Texas head coach Edrick Floreal said of the Bowerman Watch List regular, which is one of the cutest compliments I’ve ever heard. (For more on Davis, check out this great feature by my former Statesman colleague Cedric Golden).
Kynnedy Flannel — The sprint star took home the High Point Award for winning the 100m and 200m and anchoring the winning 4x100m relay. Her 200m prelim time of 22.47 (+1.6) set a new Big 12 meet record, facility record and is the fastest wind-legal time in the NCAA this year. Meanwhile, look out for her freshman compatriot Rhasidat Adeleke to potentially represent her native Ireland at the Olympics this summer; her 200m prelim of 22.96 set a senior national record.
Adrian Piperi — Who doesn’t love a great comeback story? The 2019 NCAA shot put champion suffered a devastating injury when he fell on his ankle in practice, spraining it just days before indoor nationals this year, and wasn’t even able to walk until a few weeks ago. He already owns the Olympic standard, but Big 12s was his last chance to compete this outdoor season and qualify for NCAA Regionals and Nationals. His mark of 19.80m/64-11.5 was not only good enough to win the Big 12 title, but advanced him to regionals for the chance to defend his national title. You have to feel for everyone who missed out on a season of competition due to COVID-19 last year, but especially for field event athletes who typically do not have as many post-collegiate sponsorship opportunities as sprinters and distance runners.
Yusuf Bizimana — The freshman from London has made an immediate impact on the men’s distance program at UT, and followed up his Big 12 indoor mile title with twin victories in the 800m and 1500m in Kansas. I’m not going to forget his battles with Iowa State’s Festus Lagat anytime soon. There’s throwing ‘bows, which is typical in any middle distance race with runners jockeying for position, and then there’s throwing hands (Bizimana called it “boxing” in his post-race interview). See this gif of the end of the 800m for yourself. (Lagat was ultimately disqualified).
But we didn’t forget Aaliyah Miller is in the Big 12
You can’t do a Big 12 recap with giving a shoutout to Aaliyah Miller of Baylor, who is part of an insanely deep U.S. women’s 800m talent pool this year. The super senior took advantage of the prelims’ perfect weather to set a Big 12 meet record of 2:01.82. It’s wild that in the year of our lord Athing Mu, Miller has the chance to win not one but *two* national titles in the 800m, but the Texas native has been a mega-talent since high school (2:02 PR) so it’s great to see her shine in her final year of eligibility.
Manhattan Linear Trail at dusk in Manhattan, Kansas.
Work travel is back!
I’ve commentated a few conference championship events in the past year, but always from a remote studio in Austin. It was pretty exciting to go on my first work trip since last March, when I went to Iowa State to broadcast the Big 12 Indoor Championship. That was such a different time — I remember the excitement of following the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials that weekend, too, and then just a few short weeks later, everything changed.
Remote commentating is incredibly efficient (travel is exciting but exhausting!) but you really can’t beat the energy of a live, in-person event. It felt pretty special to be there.
My hotel was also less than a mile from the seemingly endless Manhattan Linear Trail, which is all you can ask for from a work trip in a town you’ve never visited before. One of my greatest running accomplishments is logging 10 miles in the Brownsville South Padre Island airport (yes, inside the terminal after going through security), so I will literally run anywhere, but it’s nice to have a new trail to explore.
I tried to make a joke on the broadcast about all the local Strava segments belonging to the K State girls, but my poor non-track pxp guy John had no idea what I was talking about. (He honestly did a great job all weekend despite only learning the bare minimum about track days before the event! I am constantly in awe of actual broadcast professionals’ ability to speak authoritatively about sports things).
As for Manhattan itself, I did not have the time or energy between events to take anyone’s local food recommendations, but I did go to a cute coffee shop with great sandwiches called Radina’s on my last morning and did not miss my flight, so that was a success.
Are NCAA Regionals really necessary?
After briefly reducing field sizes in each event to the top 32 competitors per region, the NCAA bowed to pressure from coaches and student-athlete advocates to return to the traditional field size of 48 qualifiers.
But do we really need regionals at all?
As part of my Big 12 preview for the Statesman, I interviewed UT’s coach Floreal and we went on a bit of a tangent discussing regionals.
“Having done this for a long time, I don’t see what it adds,” he said. “All you get is a kid ranked No. 48 — and I have had several who came out of nowhere — get 12th place [to advance to nationals], and it’s like, ‘okay, does that kid make a difference in the NCAA?’ Or does that kid who got displaced [result in the national meet becoming] watered down?
“Nothing really changes… if a kid is really good and they’re performing all year, you’re asking them one more time to do it again. Very, very rarely, a top person does not advance… I don’t see the point of it beyond a kid getting hurt and a big upset.”
If the goal of nationals is to create the best head-to-head competition possible, then Floreal is arguing that the regional qualification system is silly because the top seeds are rarely displaced and you’re just adding one more meaningless race to athletes’ schedules, which are especially packed in an Olympic year, while increasing injury risk. He also compared it to college basketball’s NCAA Tournament, which deliberately sets the top-seeded teams versus the lower-seeded teams to ensure the best final possible, whereas track’s East and West regionals are divided simply by geography and not in any strategic way — which can create discrepancies in how difficult or competitive the regional races are depending on how the talent in a given event is distributed that year.
Personally, I will always support getting more collegiate athletes more opportunities in the post-season, but it was definitely interesting to hear a perspective that I am sure is shared by other coaches from Power 5 schools.
The Diamond League is back: From the depths of Gateshead to the blistering heat of Doha
Okay, if you’re still here and still wondering what “Gateshead” is, it is a city (a town? a castle?) in northeast England that played host to the first track meet of the Wanda Diamond League series on Sunday. The event was noted for its brutal weather conditions, including a nasty -3.1 headwind during the women’s 100m final that kept Sha’Carri Richardson in mortal territory after clocking dual 10.7 runs a few weeks ago. In fact, the upstart American lost the race, 11.35-11.44, to the UK’s Dina Asher-Smith, which honestly makes sense as she trains in this weather and she is also the reigning 200m world champion. It was a solid overall test for Richardson, though, as she braved the conditions to beat out Marie-Josee Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast and three-time world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica.
Top moments of Gateshead:
Dina Asher-Smith saying “oh, sweet, I won, haha, it’s cold :)” see video
Sha’Carri Richardson tweeting
Mondo losing the pole vault and having to hold the umbrella for Sam Kendricks the rest of the meet (just kidding they are friends!)
Sha’Carri Richardson telling the British press that “Some of you all are interesting, and not in a good way” (The Guardian)
Next up on the Diamond League circuit is this Friday in Doha, Qatar, a mere 73-hour drive from Gateshead according to Google maps and a temperature differential of about 50 degrees — the high on Friday will be a full 110 F.
Asher-Smith will not attend, but Richardson, Ta Lou and Fraser-Pryce will get another crack at each other in conditions that will be closer to those of Tokyo later this summer. U.S. fans will also look forward to seeing 2017 world champion Emma Coburn in action in the steeplechase, as well as a firework men’s 400m featuring Fred Kerley vs. Michael Norman, plus Kirani James of Grenada.
what else is going on this weekend?
Stateside, there’s a few more big track meets to serve as last-minute Olympic Trials qualifiers or tune-ups before the big show in a few weeks.
Portland Track Festival, Friday and Saturday — Bowerman folks, Galen Rupp??, Molly Seidel, honestly too many people to name but also Austin’s own Sarah Lancaster, Allie Kieffer, Alexandria Cruz and Katie Watson (hello my training partner!!!)
Tracksmith Platinum PT Qualifier, Saturday — Elle Purrier, Justyn Knight, Molly Huddle, Emily Sisson, Robert Dominac, Johnny Gregorek, Abbey Cooper, Josette Norris, Ben True, Martin Hehir and more
ok so long for now
I may write this in a more organized fashion at some point, or I may continue to write this stream-of-consciousness whenever I have insomnia, but either way, thank you for tuning in. Should I change the name of this from ‘The Jog’ to ‘Big Track Energy’? Thinking about it…..
ARCHIVE: Watch the Big 12 Outdoor Track & Field Championships on ESPN+ (not sure how long this will be up, but the archived broadcast is still available to watch if you scroll down a bit)