Ed: bumped for usefulness/general awesome.

Howdy!

I noticed no one else had done this so, why the hell not me?

I'm shooting for a pretty broad audience here, so don't expect any kind of in depth analysis here, just trying to hit a few highlights of what's worth watching for the next few days.

I'm just going to do a few events for now. If you guys are interested, lemme know and I'll do some more.

For those of us in the good ole U.S. of A, here is the television schedule:

I'm not going to touch on every event, but I'll try to hit most of them. Anyhoo, let's get started.

EVENT: WOMEN'S HIGH JUMP

• People who have a snowball's chance in Hell of winning:
  
  • Anna Chicherova (Russia), Antonietta Di Martino (Italy), and Chaunte Lowe (USA)
    
• Why should I give a shit?
  • This one looks like Chicherova's to lose. She comes into the meet with the world's best mark of 2.06m (about 6' 9" to us). Lowe is coming off of a personal best and American record of 2.00m though, so if she can find a couple extra inches somewhere it could be interesting.

EVENT: WOMEN'S 400 METERS

• People who have a snowball's chance in Hell of winning:
  
  • Sanya Richards (USA), Aleksandra Fedoriva (Russia), and *upset candidate* Patricia Hall (Jamaica)
• Why should I give a shit?
  • Sanya has 4 of the top 6 times in the world so far this year (including the top 2), so she should be the heavy favorite. Fedoriva is next on the world leaders list. Vania Stambolova has the other top 5 time, but the indoor 400 tends to favor foot speed, and hers isn't on par with the other two. That brings us to Patricia Hall. Just two weeks ago, she put up a near world leading 200m time of 22.88. Sanya doesn't tend to fare very well in major championships meets, even going back to her college days. She usually goes into the finals as the heavy favorite, but has only managed to seal the deal once, in the 2009 World Championships. She's the track and field version of Jason Biggs from American Pie:

Pictured: Sanya Richards before the finals of a championship meet.

Pictured: Sanya Richards after the finals of a championship meet.

If that happens again, I'm betting it was Patricia Hall's fault.

EVENT: WOMEN'S 4x400 METERS

• People who have a snowball's chance in Hell of winning:
  
  • USA, Russia, Jamaica.
• Why should I give a shit?
  • The Women's 4x400 relay is the most exciting event in track and field. Don't believe me? See if you can find a good copy of the 2008 Olympic Finals. The ladies always put on a great show. For some reason the IAAF is being stingy with the start list on this one. Russia is probably the favorite since, if I recall correctly, they have won this event every single time except in 2010. (Seriously, why is something like that so hard to look up?) USA is probably in trouble again, since this year they won't have Allyson Felix to save them. Need more? Ok. Umm. Well...I guess if Puerto Rico runs, Carol Rodriguez may be on it and she is stupid hot.

See?

Lemme know in the comments if this is doing anything for yall. If so I can preview a few men's events.