World Class 1,500 metre running may not be Mark Carroll's speciality but he produced a solid effort against a quality field at last night's Stockholm Grand Prix. Once again the enduring Irish record was a little outside his reach but the time of three minutes 35.09 seconds was just a stride outside his best.
That left him in ninth place behind Spain's Jose Redolat, who produced a surprise win in 3:31.96 just ahead of the in-form Kenyan Bernard Lagat (3:31.96). Carroll had hoped to come close to Ray Flynn's 19-year-old mark of 3:33.5 but this sort of time will be rewarding nonetheless, just 0.18 short of the 3:34.91 he ran last year.
On a cool night for running, it was also inside the A-standard for next month's World Championships in Edmonton although Carroll is targeting his favoured 5,000 metres. He now concludes his international preparations for Edmonton with a 3,000 metres in Monaco on Friday night - the fourth stop on the Golden League circuit - before coming straight home for the 5,000 metres at the National Championships on Sunday.
But as the world's leading athletes also wind down their preparations for Edmonton, the world's best 800-metre runner is winding down his season. The 20-year-old Yuriy Borzakovskiy has decided to skip the event, despite winning comfortably last night in 1:44.80 - even employing a change of tactics by running from the front.
The World Indoor champion skipped last weekend's Russian Championships in favour of the European Under-23 championships (where he won the 400 metres) and then sent a letter to the president of the Russian federation requesting that he would prefer not to run at the World Championships.
The athlete felt that to start in Edmonton would be very stressful for him and would endanger his future in the sport, and furthermore, feels that it is quite enough in one year to be crowned World Indoor Champion.
One man definitely not missing Edmonton is Ato Boldon of Trinidad. In the absence of Maurice Greene, he took the 100 metres last night in 10.09 seconds and just like the Sydney Olympics last September, should be the main rival to the American in a fortnight's time.
Jamaican sprinter Patrick Jarrett, the only man to beat world record-holder Maurice Greene over 100m this season, is protesting his innocence after testing positive for the anabolic steroid Stanozolo at the Jamaican Championships in June.
"I did nothing wrong, I don't even know that drug. It is the first time I am hearing that name," Jarrett insisted from his home in North Carolina, where he trains with coach Trevor Graham, whose athletes also include US sprint queen Marion Jones.
Jarrett's second place finish in the 100m in the June championships at Jamaica's National Stadium had earned him a place in the World Championship team for Edmonton. Now he faces a two-year ban, if he fails to convince the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association that there has been a mistake.
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