Preparing for Berlin...

In the days to come, paulmerca.blogspot.com will post an assortment of content on the site in preparation for its coverage of the IAAF World Track & Field Championships, beginning Saturday August 15th at the Olympiastadion in Berlin, Germany.

Courtesy of the Berlin 2009 Organizing Committee is a video trailer (in German) promoting the world championships, which returns to Germany after the country hosted the event in Stuttgart in 1993.


On a personal note, this will mark the ninth world championships that I've covered, either on the television or written press side. I began attending the world championships in 1991, when Rick Noji from Franklin HS and the University of Washington competed for Team USA in Tokyo, and have had the good fortune to cover the meet in Stuttgart (1993), Athens (1997), Seville (1999), Edmonton (2001), Paris (2003), Helsinki (2005), and Osaka (2007), only missing the 1995 championships in Goteborg, Sweden.

This will mark the second time that I will have content up from the world championships on this site, as we began blogging the event in Osaka two years ago.

With the rapid and exponential growth of the Internet and the web, technology allows folks to give readers more information than what was available even ten years ago.

It's my hope to expand upon our coverage from Osaka through the use of video interviews, as well as the writing and photography that readers of this blog have come to expect. Alerts on my Facebook (registration required) and Twitter pages will allow readers to instantly know when a post is up.

While the emphasis on this blog will be on athletes with ties to the state of Washington, we will divert and cover the stars of these championships as well, so Usain Bolt, Ariane Friedrich, and Kenenisa Bekele will warrant coverage as well as Ryan Brown, Mart Israel, and Diana Pickler.

We hope to also give readers a feel for the atmosphere in the city as it hosts the third largest sporting event in the world, behind the Olympics, and soccer's World Cup, an event which Berlin hosted just three years ago.

If there's anything the readers wish to see in our coverage, please don't hesitate to leave a comment.

PS--The world famous football is packed for the trip to Berlin!