It's Monday, which means it's been a bit since we last talked. This weekend marked the start of the Olympic Team Trials for Track and Field. There were some really, really cool happenings -- a complete StoryStream is over here at the mothership -- including a dead heat for third place in the women's 100 meters and, most notably, a new world record in the decathlon.
That world record was set by Ashton Eaton, the Oregon product profiled by Runner's World in last month's issue:
Small Oregon towns have produced a startling share of wonderful decathletes. Dan O'Brien grew up in Klamath Falls. Dave Johnson, the 1992 Olympic bronze medalist, went to high school in Corvallis. Tom Pappas, the 2003 world champion, was from tiny Azalea. Ashton Eaton is the latest to climb from this cradle of the discipline.
Eaton's PR performance in the final event, the 1500 meters, saw him break the decathlon world record on his home track. The final stretch of the race saw event leader Curtis Beach pull a pretty chill move, slowing down and encouraging Eaton to the finish.
Really, really awesome display of sportsmanship and genuine excitement by Beach, who hadn't planned the move ahead of time.
Other cool links of note from the weekend:
Big-Blocking Texas WR Marquise Goodwin Wins Long Jump Qualifier | SBNation.com
Runner’s World: Remember those shoes we told you to buy? Never mind. | Chris McDougall
Now, Runner’s World is slipping in another correction. In the March, 2012 issue, it began slinking away from the once hugely-profitable, and now discredited, “motion-control” shoe. They did it so quietly even I missed it, even though I’d been shocked to hear RW’s shoe reviewer, Warren Greene, hint as much at a seminar more than a year ago.
This is something that I've wondered about for a while, and have found to be similar to many tech sites' treatment of review units: never a bad review, regardless of the quality of the product provided (for example, early meta-reviews of SB Nation sister site The Verge made a similar observation -- and The Verge has since gotten far more opinionated, which is a good thing).
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