byLarry Ederrunblogrun.com was started by my brother, Brian Eder. He thought that there should be an avenue for me to write about the sport we love each and every day. He promised to do the technical wizardry, and I promised to write my thoughts on the sport of athletics one hour a day. Most days, I can do it in an hour, and some days it takes longer…but, this is the sport we love.
I start 2008 with this caveat: I try to call them as I see them. I attribute every chance I get, and I do put accuracy and honesty above all else. If I have erred, accept my apologies, send me a note and I will respond and correct the issue. In the end my agenda is quite simple: to promote the sport I love, to help our sport develop opportunities in media, to elevate the perception of the sport through fair
and stringent drug testing and to encourage coaches to fight drug cheating by educating athletes about sports and ethics….so, with no further comments, here are, in no special order, our first annual runblogrun awards…..
RunblogRun.com Award for Most Unexpected Performance: David Payne winning the bronze medal in the hurdles. First, no disrespect to David and he will be on my short list for hurdles studs from now on, but David was on on no one’s list. The U.S. has a plethora of high hurdlers and this event is just tough to make the U.S. final. Payne held his own in the rounds and the final, he was superb. I had just met the guy the day before the final, as David ate lunch in the Nike Centre. Payne will be a favorite for 2008 to medal. Close second: Kara Goucher in the Osaka 10,000 meters.
Runblogrun.com for Most Spirited Competition: Great north run, Goucher versus Radcliffe–While Paula was not at her best and Kara was coming off the high of a bronze medal at Osaka, this race was a real competition! Both athletes had lots to be proud of after the race-Paula was back and Kara had everyone saying-when is the marathon debut?
Runblogrun.com for Global Athletic Personality–no question-Haile Gebreselassie-after twenty two world records, a fine 10,000 meter run in May (26:52.1), then a 20k and an hour run world record, bringing him to twenty four world records, Haile ran the race of his life–the 2:04.26 world record, at the ripe old age of 34! Consider this, after his Olympic track performances, and his world record haul, the little Emperor ran twenty six miles plus at four minutes and forty-five seconds per mile, gliding across the streets and boulevards of Berlin to deliver a new world record by twenty-nine seconds! Haile
has the record ( I witnessed this one) for standing and signing autographs for two plus hours at the Arizone RnR Marathon in 2006.
Runblogrun.com for Class Acts for Athletes-The battle between Reese Hoff and Adam Nelson was historic at Osaka. Yet, due to many issues, partly, so many backed up press conferences in the media center, the press did not get a chance to really hear about the battle between Reese and Adam. What did come across was how much both athletes respected each other, trained with each other and could pull the best out of each other in a competition. Total class athletes, and their spirited competitions are huge draws at major meets around the world.
Runblogrun.com for Best Communications Director: Dean Stoyer, NIke Global Communications. Dean has been around for several years, we get the pleasure of dealing with him mostly on the global events. His ability to find the right media, get us access to the likes of Kara Goucher, Craig Mottram, Bernard Lagat, Alan Webb and others.
The above were just a few of the things that we wanted to address for special recognition. 2007 was a tremendous year for our sport and 2008 can only be better!
