 Yeah, we're starting from Lane 4 on this Monday edition of the Sportsmax Zone. Caribbean athletes captured four titles at the 2023 track and field season culminating with the Wanda Diamond League Finals in Eugene Argonne at the weekend. World 200-meter champion Sharika Jackson of Jamaica was a standout securing the sprint double. Yeah, Jackson winning 10.70 seconds over 100 meters. Marie-Jose Talu, how she would have loved for this to have been the world championship's second at 10.75, Elaine Topson here a third at 10.79, Natasha Morrison finishing in sixth position and lifetime best, 10.85 for the Jamaican. Men's 200 meters, also won by Sharika Jackson 21.57, her winning time, Marie-Jose Talu well back at 22.10, and the Bohemian, Anthony Xtron closing out a fine season for her with a 22.16 performance for third. To all the Caribbean winners, Men's 110-meter hurdles, this was on Sunday's final day, a world leading 12.93, a lifetime best for the 33-year-old as well beating the world champion Grant Holloway of the USA, again post-world championship, 13.06 for Holloway, Daniel Roberts the world championship bronze medalist, third here as well at 13.07. And the Canadian, Kirani James won his second Diamond League trophy, 44.30, his winning time, beating Quincy Hall of the USA, 44.44, and Vernon Norwood 44.61, Rashid McDonald of Jamaica finishing fifth at 45.10 seconds. Well, Lytton Levy has been dying to sit on this new beautiful set so we invited him just for that reason. Well, no, we invited him to have this discussion on the Wonder Diamond League finals in Eugene Oregon, Lytton. First of all, welcome to greatness. Welcome to beauty. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I came in here and stuck my toe on the other side of my neck, but I enjoyed it. The set is absolutely amazing and it's nice seeing you guys on a curved set, you know, which is something that I've always advocated for, and it's actually amazing. If you haven't seen it, you should all come down here and charge you $50 to come in and you can look at this. But it's amazing. It's incredible. It reminds me of a couple of sets that I've been on internationally, and it compares very well. Well, tell you what, by the way, Lytton meant 50 U.S. dollars, that's number one. And second of all, Lytton, we've not invited you here to analyze the set, you are here to analyze track and field. So Sharika Jackson at the end of her fabulous print doublet, the Wonder Diamond League Finals, said that she gives her season a 10 out of 10, Lytton Levy. Do you agree with her? 10 out of 10 in 2023 for Sharika Jackson. What say you? I give her a 9.5 out of 10. Why? Because she lost the 100 at Worlds, other than that, it's perfect, except for that one blip on her resume this season. It's been a fantastic season for Sharika Jackson. I mean, you consider two times on a 21-5, closing the season with 21-57, 10-65, 10-70. The only blip was that she lost the 100 at the World Championships, which is a major blip, given the fact that she was favored to win the double in Budapest. So I mean, I'm not going to dispute her 10 out of 10, but the fact is that when you look at the record itself, it's not as perfect as she would have liked it to be. Yeah. Lytton, talk to us now a bit about Sharika's time, 10.70, 21.57. Were these times that you expected her? Yeah, actually, I thought she would have been within that range for the 100, given the length of the season and given the intensity of the season. She's been competing at a very high level all season long, 10-65, 10-70. I think her slowest time this year was at 10-8 something. And of course, the comeback here at the end of the season, running 10-70. In fact, in this race, she actually attained that speed that only two women have ever gone faster than. And that's Flo Jo, Ann Ylian, Thompson Harrow, 39.6, I think, my kilometers per hour. She was fabulous in the 100, and of course, finally getting that chance to be Shakira Richardson, which is true, she's lost to all season long. So I think she'd be very happy with her 10-70, and it again validates her credentials as a developing 100-meter runner. And I think we'll probably see a lot better from her from now going onwards, because I think she's finally beginning to figure out the 100 in a way in which will make her even more dangerous in the years to come. Yeah. Thompson, quickly, about that rating that you referenced a couple of weeks ago, about 100, 200, 400 combinations sprinting, and where you have her at the moment. Because certainly, based on what she has achieved as a short sprinter in the past year and a half, two years, she must be right up there. Yeah. She's ranked second based on my math. She's actually second overall right now, behind Marietta Kopp from Germany, who we know ran 10, 10, whatever it was, I don't know the actual numbers right now, but her ranking points are 3,809. Yes. Sherry, because ranking points are 3,809, 5, after that 1065 that she ran in a national championships. So it's 1065, 21, 41, and 49, 47 makes her active, the best active female combination sprinter in history, but second overall to Marietta Kopp. She's passed Flo Joe, she's passed Marian Jones, she's passed Shawnee Milowebo. In fact, two seasons ago, Sherrica Jackson was ranked 50th in the world, I think it was, and last year she moved up to fifth, now she's second, and I do believe that next year if she manages to get under that 1065, she'll be the greatest of all time, but she already is because she's now the only woman to have run under 21, 5 as many times as she has. So she's right up there among the greatest combination sprinters in history. But there's some doubt about Marietta Kopp's place in history based on the German doping scandal of the 1970s and so on. Absolutely. Look, it's been 30 odd years and nobody's even come closer than, I think, 48, 13 by a lesser couple of world championships ago. It's the closest anybody has come since the 4799 by the Kratushilova, whose name I can never pronounce properly, but I think you got it, yeah, so you're looking at a situation where Sherrica is incredibly talented as a combination sprinter, and when she alluded to the fact that she could go back to the 400, a couple of diamond league meets ago, and she said she could go back to the 400, consider this, when Sherrica ran 49, 47, she was still a 22 high sprinter, now she can actually cruise to 22 and come home in 25 and become a 47 sprinter in the 400 meters if she gets that working when she decides to go back to the 400, so she could actually end up being supreme in a class of one if she goes back to the 400 under 47 anything. Yeah, let's talk about a few other competitors in that women's 100 finals specifically, one of them Elaine Thompson here ending the season with 10 79, and I'm not sure that many persons saw 10 79 in Elaine Thompson here as 2023 season, given that at the time of the nationals, she was only at 11 0 6 before the nationals, she sounded as if she was at breaking point with all the injuries that she was dealing with at the time, and for her to turn this season around Dayton is almost magical. Listen, I want to tell you a quick story. After that race, I call a friend of mine on the 40 who we're talking about. We're talking about Sherrica Jackson's win. We're talking about Elaine Thompson's 10 79. You want social media? Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but I call a friend because he and I have these conversations a lot and what it was that when you consider that 11 0 6 at a national champion, I said on the show that if she ran that time and 11 0s are 11 ones at the national champion, she was not going to make the team. She didn't make the team individually, but since that time after it was announced that Shawnee Gilbert and took over a coaching responsibilities 11 flat 10 92 10 84 10 79 when you consider the progress that she has made considering how truncated her background season was. It's nothing short of phenomenal. And I think the last time I was here, well, on the whole set, certainly I said her ceiling is higher than everybody else's. So if she gets back close to that ceiling, she's going to be dangerous come in the following season. So if she stays healthy going into 2024, it's going to be something special to see because at the end of the season, considering where she came from just two months ago is remarkable. Yeah. Just a quick comment on Shakira Richardson, how much should we make of her fourth place finish at the Diamond League finals? I wouldn't make much of it. I think when you when you set a goal and you accomplished that goal, it was winning the world title. And you go back home and you're getting all the accolades. You tend to drop your intensity a little bit and she's young and she's celebrating the moment. You know, she's having fun and she's thinking I accomplished my goals this year 10 10 65. She's world champion. Now she's she's validated her authenticity as a sprinter. You kind of lose the edge a little bit. She doesn't have that hunger yet that will fire her on the years for years to come. But for right now, I wouldn't be 10 80 is still a very good time. And I don't think there's too much to worry about. She'll be fast again next year, but it matters because the Olympic title is something that they will all want to go for. Yes. So I think she'll be focused again to run fast again next year. Yeah, quickly. The men's 400 meters, Kirani James, and I had to look at this twice. This was his second diamond trophy, Kirani James. The first one came in 2011. That was the year he won his world title as an 18 year old. And 12 years later, he has a second diamond trophy. How much will this mean to Kirani James, though, given the year he's had? Listen, for what he's been through this year, for what he's been through for the last few years, grave disease, his coach dying in June, you know, the challenges that he's had with injuries, especially this year, he said it right after the race that he's had to balance his emotions given that half a glass died in June. A man who's like a father to him, somebody who's guided him all the way through from college days coming right through to this point earlier before he died in June, you know, for him to come back and run 44-3, and of course, when the diamond league title has to mean the world to him because this is validation that he's still among the greatest 400 meter runners of all time. When you look at his record overall, Olympic title, world title, world medalist, and of course, two-time diamond league champion, you know, he goes down in history as one of the greatest of all time, and this season more than any will validate that. Yeah, go ahead, Maya. No, go ahead. I just wanted to say that because he has achieved so much and he started so young, it's almost as if you don't realize that at the moment he's 31 years old. Because he seems as if as we're going to reference just now, you know, in 2012, 2011, in Degu as an 18-year-old, he won the world title. He started winning international titles from, he was like 15, 16 Commonwealth youth and then world youth, and these titles were back in 08 and 09, and that seems, you know, a world away. Yeah, because I remember the first time I saw him with that character, and I'm like, who is this little skinny kid from Grenada? But he was quick, and I mean, he still looks... He did have a 200 meter world title, so you may look at him and see how long he's been doing this at the very highest level, and it speaks to the immense talent that he possesses, and he has actually delivered on that talent year and year out, notwithstanding the people who have beaten him over the time, when you look at the times that have beaten him, World Record 4303, you're looking at Luthor and Merritt's 436, those are the times that is required to be Kiran and James, and at 31, he's gone beyond veteran stage here, he's like an old timer in this event, and he still manages to produce his quality events when it matters most. And the key question would be, any signs of him slowing down at 31? Not right now, he's 31, I mean, I think he has a few good years left of him, and the 400 has come back to the field a little bit right now, because we're not seeing that many 43 runners, except for Stephen Gardner, they're not that many 43 runners anymore, so the window now is somewhere between say 41, 441 and 443, and Kiran and James is right there. Yeah, we've had this discussion late, and we had it in the build-up to the World Championships, as it relates to Hans' Apartment and the 110 hurdles. I'll say it again, I had predicted Hans' Apartment to win the World title, because what he has produced subsequent to the World Championships is what I expected in Budapest. It did not come, but here he is again late in showing his absolute quality. We speak about Kiran and James being 31 years old. Hans' Apartment is 33 years old. Yeah, the thing with the hurdles is that, I mean, we've seen the Rudder Kingdom and other guys, Allen Johnson and others, they've, hurdles have a way of extending their careers willing to their 30s, but when you look at what Hans' Apartment has been able to do, I'm wondering whether or not his cycle was a little bit off in terms of the World Championships, because since the World Championships he's gone faster and faster, 1296 now, 1293, and he's beaten Grand Halloween twice. No, I didn't check, but I'm almost convinced now that his record is similar to Rashid Broswell's record against Halloween, because maybe that he's beaten him more than the American has beaten him as well. So, you know, as I said on the show again, to me, Hans is like a god when it comes to the hurdles, because he's a massive man, for those who are not familiar with him. He's like six foot five. He takes an eternity to unfurl out of the blocks, because there's no hurdles. There's no really drive fears where you're driving forward. You come straight up, because you have to get your knees up as quickly as possible. And for him to unfurl and then hit those hurdles, you know, and increase his speed through the middle of that race and close as rapidly as he does, is nothing short of phenomenal. And they proved it once again on the weekend, chasing down Grand Halloween and proving that maybe his cycle may have been a little bit off in Budapest. Yeah, I'm starting to wonder that as well. As I said, I had suggested after the 1295 that what I saw in that race was a lot more aggression than I saw in Budapest, and that was part of what made the difference. But it could be a number of things. It could be that the cycle was slightly off. It could also be that maybe the confidence wasn't quite there. Some would say maybe even not enough races over the season. Who knows? But he is producing at a really high level. The track and field season is overladen. Can you believe it? And it ended in fabulous fashion. Two world records at the Diamond League Finals. The women's 5,000 record. The World 10,000 champion, Segui getting that. And the pole vault, Monde de Plantis, a season can't end and he doesn't get a world record. That would be almost criminal. This guy has broken the world record seven times already. He's what? Twenty-one? I remember when Sorge Bubka and Yelena Isambaba used to break the world records quite frequently. This guy is doing things that they were doing well in their 20s, late 20s. He's a baby still. And he's breaking six feet as 23. That's ridiculous. I remember when Bocca did 615, I think it was. And I was like, God, can anybody go higher than that? And here is this guy just jumping these heights like it's nothing. And of course, with Segui, it's stunning because it was only in June that Faith Kibbeak and took seconds off the world record. 14.05, 21, I think it was. Or 14.05, 20. Segui goes and takes five seconds off of that again. It's interesting you bring that up right, Leighton, because before that 5,000 on Sunday, I was having a conversation with someone who was saying that Faith Kibbeak should be a shoe-in for female world athlete of the year. And at the time, I said to the individual, well, maybe, but if Sharika Jackson goes and breaks the 200 world record, then we would be having a different conversation. And part of why I said that, I said to the individual, the 5,000 record, yes, it's a massive world record, but it's an event that, in my opinion, is still developing and it's a record that could go at any time. And 10 minutes later, he comes back and goes, well, oh yeah, Segui just brought the 5,000 record. Yeah, but here's the thing, though. Here's why Kibbeak for me is the undisputed female athlete. Because Sharika didn't break the 200 world record. If she did, it would be a different conversation at the point I'm making. But even if Sharika brought the 100 world record, here's three world records that Segui and Kibbeak are going to have broken this year. Yes. She's a world champion in both events, 1,500 and 5,000. Yes. She's a dominant champion. Yes. How do you top that? Even though Segui brought the world record, the fact is that she didn't break it first. So I don't know, she's, for me, is the AOR. We're out of time, Leighton, so I can't give you my argument, but there's an argument that I could come up with, but Sharika Jackson didn't break the world 200 record. So it's inconsequential. Yeah, Leighton Levy for the first time on our new beautiful set. Yeah, you're not going to be seeing him after the break. No. Bye-bye, guys.