Blackburn\'s Trip To Athens: Journal Two

Wednesday - Ran into the LSU coaches at a restaurant during dinner and they said they had 17 athletes here. A pretty good country I would say.

Saturday - The second day of the heptathlon and the heats of the steeplechase. Carolina Kluft of Sweden absolutely dominated the hep. After the final event (800), she won by 500+ points. All of the heptathlon athletes did a victory lap with the winner. They were all over the track and we had to move the crowd off. The Greek athlete proceeded to harass me, but it was in greek. I tried to explain to her that the steeplechase is also an important event. Alas it was hard to communicate.

Sunday - No competition in the morning. I was working with the finish of the marathon which occured at the panathanaika stadium which was refurbished for the 1896 games. Brutally hot and the winning time of 2:26 was truly remarkable, as was the bronze for Kastor. It took some finagling, but I was able to get a ride over to the main stadium in time to see the 100m final. Some people asked me if I were suprised that Gatlin won. Not having been pushed to choose a favorite at any time during the season, I had sat back and considered the US team essentially interchangable, and these results showed it.

Monday - SWEEP - Men's 400 I was officiating the men's discus final during the race and was amazed by the entire US squad. 44.00, wow. During the discus, many time champion Lars Riedal pulled his groin, limped out of the circle and collapsed to the track, thankfully not on top of me, just to the side. Apparently the Hungarian "winner" had a doping problem and was DQed.

Tuesday - Women's 100H, 400, pole vault, Men Steeplechase, 1500, decathlon. Working with the LJ qualifying for men. Dick Conner from Cal. came up to the rail and took a photo, thanks Dick, I would be interested in seeing the picture. Then I got to see Bayano Kamani qualify for the final in the 400H, finishing 2nd in his semi.

Watching the pole vault competition was truly amazing. My first world record witness. I was in Atlanta when D. Bailey ran 9.84, but was under the stadium watching on closed circuit TV. Since Sunday night which was so hot (35 C at the start and still above 30 C at the finish probably), the evenings have been beautiful. The moon is getting fuller now.

John B.

Pictures courtesy of John Blackburn. Click here for a photo album of Blackburn's Trip To Athens.