Nike Spike Action

I love wearing NIKE's and hopefully it'll be the only shoe sponsor I have during my career. I got some love with these fresh pair of personalized spikes, I was super crunk when I was opening up the boxes! We got "Oliver" on the left spike and "Sub13" on the right, pretty cool. I'll break out a pair in my outdoor season opener at Florida Relays this weekend in Gainesville. I'll have an update on that later on this week.

Enjoyed My Downtime!

I am coming off a much needed one week break, fully away from the sport of track and field! I thoroughly enjoy the chances I get to get away from the sport. Everyone needs a break, no matter what your profession is.

While I was over in Doha competing, one of my good friends Lance Gross had a movie come out titled Our Family Wedding (how appropriate a title, seeing he'll be in this exact position in real life in a few months!). I couldn't wait to go and check it out and it was well worth the few dollars I dropped on tickets. I haven't laughed that hard in a movie in who knows how long. Although I was interrupted by USADA while trying to enjoy the movie, had me rushing home from the theater to take a blood test, I finished watching it later on.

I am happy for him and the successes he's seeing in his career, it's funny when I think back to our days up in Drew Hall at Howard, now we can all tell our mothers "mama I made it!!", but then again, our University breeds successful people across all fields, so it's not really a shock, but I'm glad that I am able to put my name up there on that list as well as someone I'm close with personally.

Everybody should go and support my boy and get your laugh on!

I had a cool little feature in the April issue of Essence Magazine too, you know I'm in to being in stuff, so I was happy LOL. I been catching a little flack from my training partners and friends, but that comes with the territory, I'll take it, I got broad shoulders

My off time climaxed when I went to check out three of my all time favorite artists, Jay-Z, Young Jeezy and Trey Songz during a stop on the Blueprint Three Tour! I was super crunk, I copped tickets in December I think. They shut it down! I love going to Jigga concerts, I've been to four I believe and I'm on my feet the entire time, leaving the venue horse too from shouting lyrics all night!

Now my off time is over and my first few practices back have been killer, but it's cool, gotta get ready to drop these bombs during the outdoor season!!

Video: World Champs 2010 60m Hurdles Final

OFFICIAL RESULTS

1 Dayron ROBLES CUB 7.34 CR
2 Terrence TRAMMELL USA 7.36 NR
3 David OLIVER USA 7.44 PB
4 Evgeniy BORISOV RUS 7.51 SB
5 Petr SVOBODA CZE 7.58
6 Maurice WIGNALL JAM 7.60 SB
7 Xiang LIU CHN 7.65 SB
8 Dániel KISS HUN 7.81

Bronze Medal, Personal Best, All In A Day's Work!

I went out in the final of the World Indoor Championships and ran 60 meters worth of hurdles faster than I had ever run before! I stopped the clock at 7.44, good enough for the bronze medal, behind a new championship record from Dayron Robles who ran 7.34 for gold and Terrence Trammel, who finished in silver with an American record of 7.36.

To backtrack, I did not run very well in my semi final heat, finishing second in 7.61. I made a few mistakes, especially at the start. I wasn't too upset or anything because the bottom line is you have to survive and advance through the rounds. By finishing second, I grabbed an automatic spot to the final.

After going back to the warm up area, Brooks and I had the chance to work out a few things that went wrong with my trigger hand out of the blocks. It was sweeping back aggressively, but I wouldn't bring it back through, so that was the point of emphasis in the 45 minutes I had before the final. Having your coach or at least another set of well trained eyes is so priceless at major competitions like this.

So due to my lackluster semi final performance, I drew lane eight. Going in to the final I was so relaxed. My focus was to try to beat Liu to the first hurdle and just run like hell for the final four because I would be out there racing by myself. I feel like I had a good start and I ended up running a clean race. I can't wait to re watch the race.


One thing that I knew I had on my side was the fact that my second race is ALWAYS better than my first of the day. I knew only a few others in the race have displayed that ability in the past and the comparison of our times from the semi final to the final display just that. Robles dropped .22 (7.56-7.34), Terrence .15 (7.51-7.36) and myself .17 (7.61-7.44). Everyone else in the field so minor improvement.

Winning this medal was so sweet! Coming off the devastating injury last year, not doing block starts or heavy hurdling until two weeks before my race in Glasgow to coming out and winning an indoor medal and running a personal best. I couldn't have asked for more.

We have a saying that all indoors can do is show you where outdoors is at, and I'm feeling majorly confident that this will be a GREAT outdoor season! People who know the event of hurdling, know that what I do indoor definitely reflects well on what I am capable of doing outdoor because I am a last five hurdle guy, not a starter.

I'm so ready to get outdoor season poppin'!!

Video World Championship 60m Hurdle Heats

First round action from all five preliminary heats

Opening Round Down, Two More To Go!

The first round went as me and Brooks planned. The objective for this round was to attack the first two hurdles and then just take it easy after that. My start was much better than it has been lately and I led from start to finish and stopped the clock at 7.60, equal fastest time of all runners today, Terrance Trammel also ran 7.60 in his heat.

I felt very good, the warm up was great and I felt so much more relaxed and loose here as opposed to when I ran in New Mexico, I think I was kind of tight for that competition. Ron Forbes was in my heat, he lived and trained with me for the '08-'09 season before moving back to Miami, it's good seeing him still competing, he also made it to the next round.

People seem to be counting me out in this competition, as they seem to believe it is just a three man race between Trammel, Robles and Liu Xiang, rightfully so, but I guess that's why we run the races and I hope to have a say in it before it all is said and done. I know I am a much better outdoor hurdler than an indoor one, but as long as we aren't doing starts to the first hurdle to decide the medals, I feel I have as good a chance as anyone to claim one of them!

I am off until the semi-finals on Sunday afternoon, the finals will be two hours after the semis. I am in the third and final heat. Until then, I will keep my eyes on the prize!!!
My training partner Novlene Williams-Mills made it to the final of the 400 which will be tomorrow afternoon. The schedule called for them to run prelims and semi-finals today! She ran 51.7 and has the second fastest time going to the finals, she'll definitely do well tomorrow!

World Indoor Champs Action!

As I type this post, it is a little after 10pm local time, an eight hour time difference from the cozy confines of the first house on Emerald Green Ct. My body is almost in shut down mode.

The internet is pretty spotty in our apartments, but nonetheless, I got some action! The downside is that I don't know how much of my Slingbox I will be able to watch while out here, so I am going to be WAY out of the loop. Constant Blackberry messages to Aub will keep me slightly up to date.

I left home Sunday at 4:30 and arrived here in Doha at 7pm Monday evening. Most of the U.S. team arrived here last Thursday, I felt that ten days ahead of the final was far too much time to be in this environment personally. I would have been here stir crazy, plus I know my personal countdown, seeing that this is the fourth year I have made the trip out here to Doha to compete in some capacity.

Usually I would get here on Monday night and have to race Wednesday night. With that in mind, I have produced times of 13.14, 13.09 and 12.95 outdoors with that schedule. Granted this is a championship, but I try to treat every meet just like it's a regular competition, no need in trying to reinvent the wheel right? I travel well so I'll be fine.

The athletes village they have here is the best village I've been in out of all the team I made. We are in apartments, high jumper Jesse Williams is my roommate here, feels funny because this is the first team I've been on without my boy Kenta Bell.

The facilities are great here, real state of the art. The amazing thing is that gas cost 33 cents a gallon! I really need to fill up a couple of barrels and bring them back with me to the States!!

My first round goes off on Friday afternoon, I'm feeling great and ready to compete. I will have a pre race update before we go off.

USA Indoor Champs Wrap Up

Things out in Albuquerque went as planned. I finished second in my hurdle race behind Terrence Trammell who ran a world leading time of 7.41. That finish qualified me for the World Indoor Championships in Doha, my fourth World Championship/Olympic team qualification. I still get amazed at the accomplishments I have made in my track and field career. I would have never believed all this would come about when I was in college, with no aspirations of doing anything track related as a career.

I guess I had a string of second place finishes throughout the weekend. Second fastest prelim time, second fastest semi-final time and a second place finish. I would have loved to get the win, but at the end of the day, whether you finish first or second, the wheels of the plane will touch down at Doha International Airport at the same time.

In the finals, I feel like I ran probably the best set of hurdles I've run indoors ever. I was still coming up to set when the gun went off which caught me off guard a bit and caused my start to be even worse than it usually is. I did a good job keeping my composure and made up a lot of ground and did what I had to do to make that team! I was very impressed with my lead leg action. I did not run my best race but I still had my fifth best performance indoors time wise. I was joking with Brooks, saying that my race would have been a hell of an outdoor one!

My coach has a philosophy which I have fully bought in to. If you have a great race, you're challenging the world record, if you have a good race, you win, if you have a bad race, you still make the podium/team and that's what happened this time.

Race video