IAAF World Championships 2009

  BERLIN - Last time they gathered the globe's fastest humans to the massive Olympiastadion, it took Jesse Owens a hand-timed 10.3 seconds to run 100 meters and into everlasting acclaim as the still-acknowledged greatest track and field athlete of all time.

  BERLIN - Some still insist that Paavo Nurmi, "the Flying Finn," was the greatest distance runner of all time.

  Iona Prep and Ursuline coach Jan Mitchell has traveled to Berlin to watch the IAAF World Championships and will be sending some pictures from his trip. Check out his first back which gives you a look at hte stadium and some of the races as a fan would see them.  

  You had to love all this stuff.   Four days into the 12th World Championships of Track and Field, the goings-on really went global.

BERLIN - They adore their musclemen in this part of the world. The behemoths are beloved. They fill stadiums. Every time they flex a bicep, the crowds go bananas.

Lashawn Merritt and Jeremy Wariner had not faced off since their Olympic finals race last summer when Merritt dethroned the 2004 Athens Olympic champion Wariner for the 400 meter gold medal. With Wariner rejoining his old coach Clyde Hart for the 2009 season, many were expecting him to return back to the top after being knocked to #2 by Merritt in 2008. The race in Berlin turned out to be a nearly identical race and results from Beijing with Merritt (pictured left from UniversalSports.com) pulling away from Wariner in the final 400 meters in a World leading time of 44.06 and Wariner as the silver medalist in a season best time of 44.60. Only 23 years of age, the Portsmouth native and graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School is certainly on top of the World with many years left to go after more gold medal glory in track & field.   Three other Virginians also competed in Berlin for the 2009 IAAF World Championships including Charles Clark (formerly of Bayside HS in Virginia Beach), Sheena Tosta (formerly of Gar-Field HS in Dumfries), and Keith Moffatt (formerly of Menchville HS in Newport News). Tosta, a silver medalist in last summer's Olympic Games, had a disappointing showing in the women's 400 meter hurdles as she failed to make the finals from her semi-finals heat. Clark, a surprise qualifier for the US team, was able to advance on to the first two rounds in the 200 meter dash and the NCAA national champion placed sixth (20.39) in the finals in which the top five were all under 20 seconds. Moffatt is competing in the men's high jump today, which has yet to be completed and has been affected by a slick jumping surface from an earlier downpour of rain.   You can find online live & replay video coverage of all events completed on UniversalSports.com, a partner of MileSplit US, which MileStat.com is an affiliate site of. Post-Race Interview with Merritt from Flotrack

BERLIN - The tickets figure to sell like hotcakes once the precise dates are announced.   It will be Team USA vs. Team Jamaica in two high-energy, high-voltage, high-stakes, made-for-TV dual track meets that will provide some of the most excitement in the sport in the year 2010.  

BERLIN - An American met an old Jamaica friend, a fellow track and field devotee he hadn't seen in a year, walking the Kurfurstendamm on Thursday afternoon. "We're kicking your rear ends, aren't we?" was the first thing the Jamaican said.

Erison Hurtault advanced to the second round of the men’s 400 at the World Championships in Berlin on Tuesday. Hurtault, the 24-year-old Columbia University graduate who competes for the Caribbean island nation of Dominica, placed 4th in Heat VII. Only the first three finishers advanced automatically from each heat, but Hurtault’s time of 45.55 was good enough to place him among the three additional time qualifiers. The time was just off his personal best of 45.40, set two years ago when Hurtault placed 3rd at the NCAA Championships for the Lions.

National Scholastic Sports Foundation's John Blackburn talks about serving as an International Technical Official at the World Championship in Berlin.

Photo gallery from Jan MItchell, the coach at Ursuline and Iona Prep.