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We are not going on vacation, but we are going to be on a tight schedule through July 8th. We will be doing our best to provide updates when we can, but may have limited time to do so. Regular updates will resume on July 9th.
Posted by Alison Wade at 9:26 p.m. | Tags: Site News | Comments (0)
Live coverage of tomorrow's Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava, Czech Republic will be available for a small fee from WCSN.com. Viewers can purchase monthly ($4.95) or yearly ($49.95) access to WCSN's coverage, which will include the IAAF Grand Prix, the IAAF World Youth Championships, the IAAF World Track & Field Championships, the IAAF World Athletics Final, and more. Click here for the IAAF's preview of tomorrow's meet, which will begin at 2:00 p.m. ET.
Posted by Alison Wade at 1:13 p.m. | Tags: Webcast | Comments (0)
Alan Webb won national titles at 1,500m in 2004 and 2005, so his victory Sunday afternoon at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Indianapolis can't really be called an "upset." Nonetheless, Webb's 3:34.82 victory not only set a meet record, erasing Steve Scott's 3:34.92 from 1982 (the year before Webb was born), but also toppled defending champion, American record holder (and Friday's 5,000m champion) Bernard Lagat.
Lagat, as it turned out, had taken the risk of setting up his own rival. Webb and Lagat had planned before the race to keep the pace brisk, and the pair led through a 57.6 first 400m, and a 1:56.2 800m split, leaving previous national champions like Gabe Jennings and Rob Myers in their wake. Lagat moved at the 800m mark, and Webb stuck to him, with Webb's training partner Chris Lukezic and University of Texas junior Leonel Manzano also remaining in touch. This pack of four stuck together through the 1,200m mark, but with 200m remaining Webb was challenging Lagat - who has two Olympic medals at this distance - for the lead. On the homestretch, the challenge stuck, and Webb flew into the lead, pumping his fists as he saw he would reach the tape first. From behind, Manzano surprised Lagat to take second in 3:35.29; Lagat wound up third in 3:35.55.
"I like to be a challenge to the young guys of the U.S.," said Lagat. "If they're trying to get a 3:29 out of me, or 'to beat Lagat,' that's good for all of us." Lagat left open the possibility of running both the 1,500m and 5,000m in Osaka.
"I told myself to stay calm, stay calm," said Manzano, "then all of the sudden something in me said, 'go now.' And I went. I just wanted to stay with the pack and make sure they didn't get away from me; when I crossed the line, I thought, 'Did that just happen?'"
"The two of us would rather have it be man-on-man running 3:35 than a big field," said Webb. "I'd rather be on the team and risk not winning. By the time I got to the last stretch, I felt great."
Posted by Parker Morse at 6:31 p.m. | Tags: Race Reports, 2007 USA Outdoor T&F Champs | Comments (0)
Khadevis Robinson won his fourth 800m title on Sunday at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Indianapolis. Robinson followed a pattern he set in his semi-final of getting away from the pack early and holding a hot pace longer than anyone else, such that runner-up Nick Symmonds observed, "When I reached the homestretch, I knew I was going to take second." Robinson won in 1:44.37 with Symmonds in 1:45.17 and USC's Duane Solomon third in 1:45.69.
"I figured if I made it a 1:44 race, they would have to run a PR to beat me," Robinson explained. "And if they could do that, they would be having a great day--after all, if I ran a PR by a second and a half, I'd be at 1:42 flat."
Posted by Parker Morse at 5:41 p.m. | Tags: Race Reports, 2007 USA Outdoor T&F Champs | Comments (0)
The University of California's Alysia Johnson, NCAA champion two weeks ago, won the women's 800m title at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Indianapolis with a time of 1:59.47. Johnson, who just finished her junior year of college, went out with early pacesetter Chanelle Price, who covered the first lap in 57.9, then pressed her advantage over defending champion Hazel Clark, in pursuit, and Alice Schmidt. Clark and Schmidt pressed Johnson to the line, but Johnson held them off, with a .13-second advantage over Clark in 1:59.60 and Schmidt just an eyelash back in 1:59.63.
"We've been planning my season on running at the Worlds all along," said Johnson. "I've been confident all along, and running my second sub-2:00 this year is at the top of my list of good races right now."
Posted by Parker Morse at 4:52 p.m. | Tags: Race Reports, 2007 USA Outdoor T&F Champs | Comments (0)
Josh McAdams was NCAA champion in 2006, but he didn't expect to make the transition to USA champion quite as quickly. On a drizzly Sunday afternoon in Indianapolis, McAdams challenged and then ran away from American record holder Daniel Lincoln to win the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championship in 8:24.46, winning his first senior national title and punching his ticket for the World Championships in Osaka.
Lincoln opened a gap on the field with a lap and a half remaining in the race, and McAdams was the only one to cover it. McAdams challenged once on the curve just after the bell, then again on the backstretch, and the second time he opened a lead on Lincoln. Lincoln, the three-time defending champion, faded to fifth (8:28.32) in the homestretch, and recent Arizona State grad Aaron Aguayo stormed by to take second in 8:27.01, with Thomas Brooks of the Oregon Track Club third in 8:27.34; Anthony Famiglietti was fourth in 8:27.64.
"The last 200 was all guts," said Aguayo. "Coming in, I thought anything in the top seven would be good. I was in fifth coming over the final barrier, and I just ran right through the tape."
Aguayo and Brooks only have the "B" qualifying standard, so Famiglietti, the current alternate, will take Brooks' place if neither can run under 8:24.60 before August 1st.
McAdams admits disregarding his coach's advice: "Coach Eyestone said if the pace was slower than 70 or 71 [per lap] to go ahead and take it, but we were a lot slower and I sat back. If we'd had to close in 2:00 [for the last two laps] I would've been ready."
Posted by Parker Morse at 1:22 p.m. | Tags: Race Reports, 2007 USA Outdoor T&F Champs | Comments (0)
Nebraskan Emily Sisson ran 16:48.67 to win the women's junior 5,000m Saturday at the USA Junior Track & Field Championships in Indianapolis. Sisson closed an early lead opened by Marissa Treece to recreate a lead pack of four (with Alex Gits and Karen Summers) before beating Gits by less than two seconds.
"I want to peak at the races that mean the most to me," said Sisson, "and this race means a lot to me. I really wanted to peak here. It's only my second time in this race [on the track] and it hurt a lot to kick at the end." Sisson is a freshman at Omaha's Marian High School, and she finished third at the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships last fall.
Posted by Parker Morse at 12:04 p.m. | Tags: Race Reports, 2007 USA Outdoor T&F Champs | Comments (0)
Jennifer Barringer, a sophomore from the University of Colorado, won a narrow women's steeplechase victory over Anna Willard, the NCAA champion in collegiate-record time two weeks ago, Saturday at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Indianapolis.
Barringer's time of 9:34.64 was a meet record, a PR by 10 seconds, and the second-fastest ever by an American woman. Williard, whose collegiate record was eclipsed by Barringer, also PRed in 9:34.72.
At the NCAA meet, Barringer, then the defending champion, lost one of her spikes when she was inadvertantly clipped by a competitor; the time she lost took her out of contention, but she worked her way back up to seventh. Indianapolis became something of a rematch, as Barringer and Willard followed Lindsey Anderson for five of the seven laps before breaking away. Barringer finally claimed an advantage on the final water barrier, which was enough to hold off Willard's closing speed and earn her the victory.
"It's tough coming in with the top seed," admitted Willard. "You have everything to lose and nothing to gain. I jammed my left ankle on the fourth water jump in the prelims. I usually jump with my right and land with my left. On the first ones [today] I switched, but as you get tired you go back to what you're used to."
"The one stride on the last water barrier was it," agreed Barringer. "Two strides before the barrier I knew it would be perfect. Every little bit counts in the steeplechase, and that last 100m was as fast as Jenny Barringer goes. My coach gave me some splits to run, but after the first lap, they were right out the window. Now we have a benchmark for considering what I'm capable of going forward."
Now, she has to decide between racing the steeple in Osaka, and preparing for the collegiate cross country season.
"This is a big decision that I'll have to go to my coaches with. Osaka is a big deal, but I want to win a cross country title and I want to guard my chances to do that."
Posted by Parker Morse at 11:51 a.m. | Tags: Race Reports, 2007 USA Outdoor T&F Champs | Comments (0)
A.J. Acosta defended his 1,500m title at the USA Junior Track & Field Championships, but he only managed it "by a chest hair," as Matt Centrowitz, who will join him on the Oregon team next year, pushed him right up to the finish line. Acosta's winning time in Saturday's final in Indianapolis, 3:49.53, was almost four seconds slower than 2006 and only .01 second faster than Centrowitz, timed in 3:49.54. Sam Borchers repeated in third, running 3:50.23.
"I took it to heart when Dwight Stones said on the Pac-10 telecast that I didn't have a kick," said Acosta. "I didn't want it to come down to a 100m sprint."
"I knew it would come down to the wire," said Centrowitz. "No one really likes to lose, but losing to one of my future teammates, I can't be too disappointed."
Posted by Parker Morse at 9:07 p.m. | Tags: Race Reports, 2007 USA Outdoor T&F Champs | Comments (0)
When Jordan Hasay wins, usually she wins early, leaving no chance of a last-minute attack at the finish line. Saturday afternoon in the women's junior 1,500m at the USA Junior Track & Field Championships in Indianapolis, Hasay not only won the race with a strong finishing kick, she spent much of the first lap boxed in.
Danielle Tauro and Nichole Jones set the early pace, which was brisk, 68 seconds for the first lap and 70 for the second. By two laps in, Hasay had found her way out of her trap in the back of the pack and moved up to third. "I planned to move with 700m to go," she explained, and that move dropped all but Tauro, who matched the diminutive Californian's speed immediately. The two dueled to the final homestretch, running a 67-second final lap. As Hasay pulled away, Tauro crumpled a few dozen meters from the line, and only regained her feet to finish sixth.
Hasay's winning time of 4:16.98 broke a thirty-year-old meet record previously held by Lynn Jennings (4:18.1, so old it was hand-timed.)
"I could feel her right behind me and I thought she might come back," said Hasay. "I still can't believe it."
Posted by Parker Morse at 9:06 p.m. | Tags: Race Reports, 2007 USA Outdoor T&F Champs | Comments (0)