Quick Thursday morning IAAF World Champs recap

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First, I must start with the most dramatic competition of the day, at least from the perspective of this female living in the US. There was no doubt that my hopes of a US medal in the 1500m was riding on Morgan Uceny. Uceny was holding a #2 world ranking in the event according to all-athletics.com, mostly thanks to her dominating performances at the Diamond League meets. She had shown over and over again that while she might not be in the sub-4:00 club, she had the race savvy to win a championship race with a well-timed finishing kick. Until Kenya’s Hellen Onsando Obiri got in the way.

Obiri had been a little pushy the entire race, getting into a little elbow match with the other US athlete, Jenny Simpson, earlier in the race, and making some aggressive and reckless moves throughout. With 550m to go, she made one last fateful stupid and reckless move that resulted in a face-plant on the track, taking Unceny down with her and nearly tripping both Simpson and Hannah England, who had to hurdle the carnage. Incidentally, these are the two athletes that ultimately prevailed. The next time around the track, the two of them worked their way from the back of the pack to the front over the last 150m and crossed the line with Simpson in the gold position, England in the silver. The #1 ranked 1500m runner managed to cross the line even after the two tripped runners, with Uceny in third to last.

Simpson's gold is the first World Championships or Olympic gold that the US has seen since 1983. Her previous finishes at WC and Olympic events were 9th in the 3000m steeplechase at the 2008 Olympics and 5th in the same event at the 2009 World Championships.

You can watch the race in its entirety in a foreign language here:

The only thing that could really overshadow this race would be a gold medal and an American record. This is just what LaShinda Demus did shortly thereafter in the 400m hurdles. Her previous performances at the World Championships were silver medals at the 2005 and 2009 competitions. Her performance of 52.47 broke a 16-year old American record.

On the men's side, Jesse Williams claimed the gold in the high jump. Not a huge surprise since he was the top ranked jumped coming into the competition, but it's always great to see the favorites come through when it counts.

In the men's 1500m, young Matt Centrowitz Jr ran a smart tactical semi-final, including a rarely successful pass on the inside with one lap to go, and won his heat, securing his spot on the line in the final, to be held on September third.

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• IAAF World Track and Field Championships - Daegu, Korea

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