Yo, Who Did What?

The Samsung Diamond League ended with a bang at the Memorial Van Damme in Brussels, Belgium, today and it was a Jamaican stealing the show.

And no, it wasn't that Jamaican, it was Yohan Blake, the world champion in the 100-meter dash after Usain Bolt's famous false-start in South Korea a few weeks ago. Today Blake ran the second-fastest 200m time in history, winning in an amazing 19.26, faster than Michael Johnson's 'shock-the-world' moment at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Only Bolt (19.19) has run faster. American Walter Dix finished second to Blake in a speedy 19.53.

Blake was not shy in talking with the press. "I was looking for this and I got it. I expected to run fast but not this fast," he said. "The last 40 meters was crazy, but I'm like a beast when that happens. I just take control of the track."

Can we even fathom the buildup to the men's 200-meter dash in London next summer? Speaking of Bolt, he overcame a slow start to run a world-leading 9.76 in the 100m at today's Diamond League season closer.

From an American perspective, the big news was the American record set by 25-year-old Galen Rupp in the 10,000-meter run. Rupp — who finished third behind Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia and Lucas Rotich of Kenya — finished in 26:48.00, a full 11 seconds faster than Chris Solinsky ran in April 2010 to set the U.S. standard. Only 15 men in history — nearly all from Africa — have run faster than Rupp.

Another American — Cornell graduate Morgan Uceny — won the 2011 Diamond League 1,500m title by running a world-best 4:00.06. In taking the title, she beat all three medalists at the World Championships — Jenny Barringer Simpson, Hannah England and Natalia Rodriguez — as well as two-time Worlds' champ Maryam Yusuf Jamal.

World 100m champion Carmelita Jeter continued to show that she is hard to beat at her specialty as her time of 10.78 was .07 seconds faster than Jamaica's Veronica Campbell-Brown. And the world of the shot put seems right again as Americans Reese Hoffa and Christian Cantwell went 1-2, each with a big throw of more than 22 meters.

By the way, Yohan Blake is hardly a newcomer to those that follow the Penn Relays. Here he is as a junior in 2007, anchoring the St. Jago High School 4x400-meter relay in the Championship of America. It was simply a great race and a great call by Flotrack's Mark Floreani.