OH, CANADAAaa! Those were great IAAF World Championship games held in Alberta. Just some highlights I’d like everyones comments on:
1)It was great to see Donavan Bailey take that last victory lap in his home country. He lost in the semi’s, and that was most likely his last race. But BOY was that guy awesome in his peak! American Sprinters had become sort of complacent, and he really stirred them up. Great Champion. It also showed that the will is sometimes no match for “Father Time”. How is Donovan viewed by the Canadian public that follows Track and Field?
2)Zhanna Pintusevich-Block(from the Ukraine and winner of the 100 meters over Marion Jones) and Jonathan Edwards (34 year old winner of the Triple-Jump, from Great Britain). The 100 Meter final was great! Don't think that Block is just a "technician"; the woman has speed. However, I THINK that what she did was "awaken a sleeping Giant" in Jones. It will be VERY interesting to watch the Womens's 100 leading up to the Olympics. There should be some GREAT races!
Now…Edwards…he IS a “technician”…the guy looks like a Gazelle sprint-jumping across the Serengeti, running from Lions’s…maybe his event depends a LITTLE more on technique than the 100 meter…but I think that the guy just “got game”…
Those were highlights to me…any other’s that you guys had? Any comment on track and field, age, technique, etc.? As always…I enjoy you guys thoughts and insights!
There’s no doubt in my mind that Donovan is a superb athlete, and has been a great representative for canadian athletics.
I don’t think he enjoys making public appearances, though. I met him in winnipeg a few weeks before the pam-am games (in 99, i beleive) and he was pretty rude to anyone who approached him. He may have just been having a bad day, but he came across as being somewhat arrogant. He’s acted similar in interviews that I’ve seen. I think this obviously affects his popularity around here to an extent, but none the less, no one can dispute that he is a physical specimen and a feirce competitor.
It’s funny because Donovan actually seems to get a lot of bad press and public opinion of him seems low. I remember at last years Olympics people giving him a hard time about the “cold” he had. Meanwhile the guy had an all out flu that rendered him almost useless.
Then someone from the Canadian Track and Field team says that Donovan was out partying the night before the last race he ran in which he pulled up in the first 20 meters because he was just too sick to compete.
Donovan rolls up, calls Michael Lansberg at TSN and they cancel an entire show so that Donovan can refute the accusaions. He was making a public appearence in support of the 2008 Toronto Olympic bid as a favor to John Bitove (Bid Pres.) and someone flamed him for it to the press.
Bottom line, I don’t think that Donovan gets the respect from the general public in Canada. Yeah, he’s a jerk sometimes but the people close to him seem to respect him a great deal and that’s a better measure of a person than shit slinging in the press.
As one of our Aussie friends say, “my two cents”. Peace.