In a departure from all my previous blog posts, I thought I’d try my hand at a personal entry. Yesterday, the Olympic Track and Field competitions began, with the U.S. taking Silver in the Men’s shot put. What was supposed to be a sweep ended up in disaster: Cantwell never qualified at the trials, Godina fouled his first two and didn’t make it to the finals, and Nelson fouled all but his first throw. If you’re wondering how I know all of this, it’s becuase I’m a track nut. I’ve been running track and field since sophmore year of high school, and by this point know almost all the men’s world records, and a fair number of the women’s.
Back in high school, I ran everything; most notably the 110 hurdles, 300 hurdles, and triple jump. In college I was a walk-on, and focused solely on the triple jump (with a few 4×400 legs sprinkled here and there). The Olympic triple jump preliminaries start tomorrow. Despite the craziness at the U.S. Olympic trials, I’d put my money on Christian Olsson, with Jadel Gregario and Kenta Bell rounding out the top three.
Back in college, I was a fairly mediocre Division-I athlete, managing to jump 14.61 (47’11.5″) at the Ivy League championships my sophmore year. In contrast, Olsson’s best is 17.83 (58’6″) and the world record is a whopping 18.29 (60’0″). When you have a moment, try measuring out 20 yards and imagine traversing the distance in 3 steps.
For your amusement, I’ll leave you with some track pictures, courtesy of Dan Grossman, a great friend of Brown Track and Field. Some of these are certainly less flattering than others, thanks to the speedsuit and my unique facial expressions.
Harvard 2001
Sean Thomas and myself
Possibly one of my two good jumps sophmore year
Warming up at Heps 2001
Me not getting my feet out in front of me
More jumping at Yale
Indoor Heps 2002 (with bleached hair)
More indoor heps
Ridiculously cold meet at Harvard
Heps champsionships @Navy 2002
A very bad jump at Heps
By this point, I hope you’ve enjoyed my humiliation. Next post I’ll get back to some real issues, including kernel debugging and the joys of KMDB.