Diamond League Track & Field–Scandinavia and the World’s Finest
Coach George
By George Parrott, Special to SRN
In the Western U.S., we have only the Prefontaine Meet in Eugene in May that hosts any of the world’s top track and field athletes. The May date is too early for much in the way of top performances, but it is a chance to see what track and field might, and used to, be in this country.
In NYC, the Adidas Grand Prix is also part of the Diamond League schedule, and this year saw a sub 4-minute mile in the high school invitational race.
But in Europe, track and field, or “athletics” as it is termed there, is still a major sport. Appearance fees, performance incentives and end-of-season bonuses bring out the absolutely best the world has to offer in athletics for the Diamond League in the major European events on the 14 event overall schedule.
Rome, Oslo, Lausanne, Paris, Birmingham, Monaco, Stockholm, Zurich, and Brussels are the highlight venues of the European base for this series, and for many track and field fans, the bucket list fantasy sites might well be Oslo, for the Bislett Games meet or Stockholm, for the DN Galan. London, Zurich and Brussels finish the annual season, but frequently those meets conflict somewhat with the World Championships or even the Olympics, so “A-level” athletes are not as regularly in those fields.
Oslo is usually in early June and Stockholm is in late July, and these are both wonderful times to spend time in Scandinavia. Some years ago, the Buffalo Chips organized running group trips twice to participate in 12 person, 4-day, relay races in that part of the world, so it might even be possible to coordinate seeing some of the world’s best athletics with participation in the St. Olavsloppet Relay (this goes from east to west across the whole of Norway, finishing in Trondheim). (Editors note: You really owe it to yourself to follow the link to look at the pictures from the race. Is that Ian Sharman in the orange cat costume?)
The downside of touring in Scandinavia for US travelers is….the cost. Scandinavia has always been one of the most expensive tourist regions in the world, and that has gotten worse with the current (2011) relationship of the US dollar to almost all other currencies. Save your travel funds and plan accordingly, but Norway and Sweden are beautiful and also very safe and easy travel meccas for Americans–everybody speaks English !!
This July 29, 2011 found Chips Christine Iwahashi, George Parrott and ex-Chip Linda Hood (now living in Minneapolis) sitting opposite the finish line on the far side of the track in the 1912 Olympic stadium in Stockholm for this year’s DN Galen. Finish line proximity seating would have cost upwards of $400, and our farside tickets were still $76 each, but our view was good and the stadium was “sold out” according to later news reports.
At the Stockholm meet, new stadium records award the athlete a diamond worth in excess of $10,000, and there were four of those that evening. Despite warnings from all the weather experts of rain, the evening was perfectly dry, sunny until almost 10 pm, with a slight breeze as a headwind for the final straight. That breeze aided with a new stadium record, by the way, in the javelin, as it helped loft the spear almost all the way to the far end of the green. There was a new women’s stadium record in the pole vault, and Usain Bolt totally dominated the meet closing 200 meter dash. The men’s 1500m A-level included a couple of Americans that were at our NCAA championships in Sacramento about 3-4 years ago, but the best they could muster was a 3:35 where the top 3-4 guys were closer to 3:33.
The highlight of the meet for us was the women’s 5000m. In these top level distance events there are always hired rabbits, and for the women’s 5k there were two such bunnies that clearly were there to try and set up a world record time attempt. The opening laps with the two rabbits leading were clicking off around 66 seconds, and only one of the real racers went with that pace, and she was the smallest woman in the field which also included a couple of our currently top American females. Vivian Jepkemoi Cheruiot (Kenya) is peaking in a most impressive fashion and totally dominated the outstanding field with a world-leading 14:20 finish. She ran the last 8-9 laps totally solo and she probably missed a potential WR because of those headwinds on every finishing straight in each lap. Defar (Ethiopia) owns both the stadium (14:12) and world record (14:11, Oslo) and they will meet later this month in the World Championships in South Korea.
Shalene Flanagan (USA) was fourth in 14:46 and Californian Magdalena Levy-Boulet took more than a minute off her own personal best with a sterling 15:14 in 10th place. Seven women broke 15:00 in this race, while in the London meeting just a week later, the winning time was 15:00.57, as all the top athletes were starting their final peaking for Daegu, Korea and the World Championships in two weeks or so….
George Parrott, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology, emeritus, at California State University, Sacramento, as well as a long-time coach and training director of the Buffalo Chips Running Club, and general fixture on the Sacramento running scene.