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We told you not to count Jeremy Wariner out. He dropped a 43.98 in Oslo on Friday. That means that he probably wasn’t quite ready in Berlin last week, but the champ isn’t offering up any excuses just sub 44 times. The reason Wariner ran better this week is because he got back to running his trademark race on Friday. He went out extremely fast in the first half of the race in Berlin. On Friday though, Wariner got out hard and settled into his race before blasting home the last 150 meters.
Wariner running 43.98 in the first week of June could mean that the winning time in Beijing may be near Michael Johnson’s world record of 43.18. We’re not ready to proclaim that Michael Johnson’s world record will be broken, but the winning time in Beijing will be extremely close.
Kenyan Pamela Jelimo is proving more than a flash in the pan by running another hot 800. This time she only ran a stunning 1:55.41. The only thing more shocking than Jelimo’s emergence on the international scene is that of Sudanese Abubaker Kaki running 1:42.69 as an 18-year-old. The “do-nothing” media can blabber on all they want to about steroids, but drugs won’t do a thing to help you run under 1:43.
Is there yet another contender for the 100 throne in Beijing? Derrick Adkins of the Bahamas ran 9.98, and sure, it was winded (+2.3). That means he is in 10 flat shape and if he progresses, he could possibly run below 10 seconds in Beijing. Yikes!
Is it becoming ever more clear with each race that Bianca Knight is someone to be reckoned with in the 200? Her 22.56 shows that she is fearless about running against the sport’s biggest names. Let there be no doubt that she will contest for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.
By Jay Hicks.
