Close, But No Cigar...

In the first match up of the season between two of the top hurdlers in the World, I came up a little on the short end of the stick. In the finals, I tasted defeat to Robles 7.48 to 7.49. This race just added to the list of races we've had that has come down to a tenth of a second difference.

I am pretty happy with my performance out there last night. Here's the rundown of what happened:

The night started out with the Presentation of the Stars, myself along with a other top level athletes such as Dwight Phillips, Robles, Lolo Jones, Meseret Defar to name a few, were brought out and introduced to the fans. The down side of the event was it was 30 minutes late, so instead of being at 5:30, it started at 6, and I hadn't started my warmup yet and had to be back to the track at 6:45! So instead of getting my normal hour and half or so, I had to cut it down severely. I definitely don't mind doing those presentations at all! I remember when nobody wanted to invite me to anything.

I hit a quick warmup and the luxury of having rounds is that I could just get the kinks out in the race. In the heats, I finished second, coming across the line in 7.63, behind Svoboda who ran 7.57. One of my goals was to run a good time in both rounds, but I figured that wasn't going to happen. I didn't care too much, at the end of the day, I never thought I was in doubt to make the finals, so maximum effort wasn't needed.

In the finals, Svoboda, the fastest in the heats, was in lane four, Robles in five, myself in six, Dwight Thomas, who ended up finishing third went in seven.

Clearly that side of the track was going to have the heat.

The gun went off, and I was looking at Robles back already at hurdle one. I never panic when situations like that arise, that's a position that I've found myself in plenty of times and I know how to handle myself. I slowly started making up ground during the course of the race, but we're only racing over five hurdles, so my time runs out sooner rather than later. It came down to the lean, and I caught an L by one hundredth of a second....again. I lost in '08 12.97 to 12.98 in Zurich.

I love when I race against him because we always put up good performances and you've got to be on your A game to win. 7.48 and 7.49 are the top two times in the World so far this season. I didn't accomplish everything I set out to try to accomplish but I am happy with the performance. We meet again in a few days out in Stockholm, should be another good one.