US Olympic trials produce a dead heat result in the womens 100m

Last weekend for the first time ever, the US Olympic trials for women in the 100m final produced a dead heat result. Both Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh crossed the finish line in joint third place in exactly 11.068 seconds. With timing equipment measuring thousandths of a second and cameras taking photos at a rate of 3,000 frames per second, the judges could not decide which of the runner's torso had cross the line first. A dead heat has never been seen before, even in the event's long history.

On Sunday evening, USATF spokeswoman Jill Geer announced the new procedure for breaking a third-place tie in the 100 and any running event in the future for which a U.S. national or Olympic team is selected. Unless one athlete declines her position, the runners will decide between a run-off and a coin toss. Either way, the decision must be made and a team finalised by the end of the trials on Sunday, July 1. Officials will work with the two and their coach, Bobby Kersee, to decide what to do next.

From 4:08 Marathon to an Olympic Team trial

This piece of news is about a runner in the US named Erin O'Mara. She completed her first Marathon in Detroit in 2006 when she ran 4 hours 8 minutes and 8 seconds. A year later, she ran 3:17. In 2008, she broke the 3 hour barrier by running 2:55:46 in Chicago. In June of 2011, she ran 2:47:39. She finally qualified for the US Olympic trials last Sunday by running 2:43:55 in the California International Marathon, just 2 minutes inside the qualification standard of 2:46.

Now in reality, Erin O'Shea is only one of some 200 women who have qualified for the US trials and is certainly not going to be qualifying for the US Olympic team. However, it is still a remarkable journey....to go from a 4:08 initial Marathon to an Olympic trial. When it comes to running, everyone is not equal. Besides training, a huge amount will depend on your genetics and this will determine how fast you can run. It would make you wonder though how many people are out there who might have the ability to run really fast times but may have not started running for a whole host of reasons?

For those of you that might be interested, the Marathon qualification standard for men for the US trials is 2:19. Women have 2 Marathon qualification standards........an A standard of 2:39 and a B standard of 2:46. The top three finishers in the Trials in Houston in January will represent the United States in the 2012 Olympic Games in London.