With no more morning sessions, yesterday was a chance to sleep in and relax some - which was needed. The last two days of the meet don’t start until the late afternoon and the only thing in the mornings will be the marathons. They don’t start till after 11:00 a.m., however, so no rush to get up. To watch the marathons, all we decided to do is sit in our apartment and watch it live on TV. The only drawback to our plan is the broadcast is in German – the price you pay to sit in your living room, feet up and relaxing.
Friday at the stadium was a busy, crazy day. First of all, of course I had to get there early to get the lens I wanted to use from Canon. Then it was just hanging around the media center doing a lot of nothing, really. As I left to go to the stadium, it was misting a little, but about 90 minutes before I was going to head out to the track it started to pour. Watching the meet on the closed circuit TVs, you could see that the people in the front rows of the stadium were protected from the elements by the roof - and since I am one of the many photographers whose photo position is the front row of the stands, this was great. The red bib, big-time guys were getting very, very wet. The one small problem was making the dash from the media center to the stadium – maybe 100 meters - but in the 100 meters you would get drenched, so I thought I would wait till the last minute and hope that the storm would let up.
When the rain got too bad, the meet was held up for about 40 minutes and I decided to start up my computer again and just work on a few things. It starts up normally, but for some reason I could not get online. After a few minutes of panic, I go get one of the many tech guys they have here for just such problems. He works on it, but since I do not speak German I have nooo clue what was wrong or what he did, but he was able to fix it. By this time, the rain has let up some and the action is back on. I grab my camera and make a mad dash to the stadium. As soon as I step out the door, the gun sounds for the 1st semi final of the women’s 1500. I get to a photo spot in the front row just as they pass 600 meters, so I am good.
The night's action had some ups and downs, but one huge downer for the USA.
Nick Symmonds took advantage of a rough and tumble 800 semi 1, which saw the leader Abubaker Kaki (the World Jr Record holder and World Indoor Champ who has run 1:43.09 in 2009) get tripped and not finish. There is a very good chance that he will be added to the final, but he will need to get a new pair of spikes as his were ripped apart in the fall.
Also on the positive side, all three women in the 1500 advanced to the final – that has to be a first. There were many years in Olympic Games or World Champs where the USA had trouble getting 3 runners to meet the basic entry standards. As expected, Allyson Felix (200) and LaShawn Merritt (400) each won gold, with Jeremy Wariner taking the 400 silver.
On the negative side, once again in a major championship the USA men’s 4 x 100 team will not be in the finals. This time, they did get the baton around, but it was ruled that they passed BEFORE the zone during the exchange between the 3rd and 4th runner. The US team filed a protest, but it was turned down.
Waking up Saturday, the rains are gone – the weather is back to perfect and two great days of track remain - with fewer and fewer preliminary races and more and more finals.
Friday at the stadium was a busy, crazy day. First of all, of course I had to get there early to get the lens I wanted to use from Canon. Then it was just hanging around the media center doing a lot of nothing, really. As I left to go to the stadium, it was misting a little, but about 90 minutes before I was going to head out to the track it started to pour. Watching the meet on the closed circuit TVs, you could see that the people in the front rows of the stadium were protected from the elements by the roof - and since I am one of the many photographers whose photo position is the front row of the stands, this was great. The red bib, big-time guys were getting very, very wet. The one small problem was making the dash from the media center to the stadium – maybe 100 meters - but in the 100 meters you would get drenched, so I thought I would wait till the last minute and hope that the storm would let up. 
