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It's good to be a fan for once...

DOHA, Qatar—Sometimes, it’s just good to be a fan.

It’s just past midnight at the place I’ve called home for the last nine days, the Wyndham Grand Hotel, where a sizable contingent from around the world is staying.

The Wyndham is part of a cluster of three hotels within walking distance of each other where the Doha Organizing Committee is housing those who have come from all parts of the world to cover the IAAF World Track & Field Championships.

With no athletes with Washington ties competing Saturday night, I’ve been able to play photographer just a little bit more than normal (disclosure: I am credentialed as a photographer, but I have an upgraded media pass that only gets me into the mixed zone to do quick interviews).

While most of my shooting has been on the perimeter of the track, I’ve been able to trade my yellow IAAF photo vest for a black IAAF vest for one round of the men’s shot put.

What’s the significance? The black bib gets you into the infield, as opposed to trying to shoot it from the perimeter of the track.

I was able to shoot the second round of the shot from the infield, and got good shots of all three Americans in the final—Ryan Crouser, Darrell Hill, and Joe Kovacs.

When you only get one round to shoot someone from the infield, there’s only one rule (actually two)—get it right, and don’t screw up!

As I am also shooting for TrackTown USA in Eugene, I took my best shots and transmitted it via iPhone SD card reader to Jessica Gabriel, their director of communications, who’s been using some of my photos this week for social media posts, primarily on Twitter.

As we got down to the sixth and final round, Kovacs suddenly went into the lead after sitting in fourth with a throw of 75-2 (22.91m). Suddenly, the plan to feature either Crouser or Hill in the post-event tweet went out the window.

Fortunately, I downloaded a pic of Joe from that second round onto my phone, and once the event was over, she was able to tweet out a summary of that competition:



BTW, what else happened tonight from an American perspective? 

Nothing, if you don’t want to call the first victory by a USA men’s 4 x 100 meter relay team (Christian Coleman, Justin Gatlin, Mike Rodgers, Noah Lyles) a big deal; a convincing win in the metric mile by Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands, who trains in Beaverton on the Nike campus as part of the Nike Oregon Project, thus getting the 1500/10000 double; and Shelby Houlihan of the USA and the Nike Bowerman TC was fourth in that women’s 1500 in an American record 3:54.99.

You can read the recap of the meet, as well as look up the results from Saturday night via the IAAF’s micro site.

Before I end this post, I must apologize to all of you for completely neglecting the collegiate cross country action involving the state’s nine teams.

Once I get back to the States, I’ll do my best to catch up with what’s going on in college cross country.

Sunday is the final day of the IAAF World Track & Field Championships, with 2018-19 UW volunteer coach and defending Olympic champion Matthew Centrowitz, along with Josh Kerr of Great Britain and the Seattle based Brooks Beasts, duking it out for a spot on the podium in the men’s 1500 meters, which gets underway at 7:40 pm (9:40 am in Seattle).

NOTE:  The IAAF, and USA Track & Field contributed to this report.
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