Track Town

Eugene '08 is underway with the Olympic Track Trials returning to the motherland of US Track and Field - the venerable Hayward Field at the University of Oregon. The first 3 days are in the books - no big surprises so far; but some stunning performances.

My choices of the performances of the weekend -

• Women's 10,000 - Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher putting on a classic distance duel with the outcome not decided until the last 300 meters. But the big story of the race was Amy Yoder Begley finding a way to dig deep over the last 800 (especially the last 200) to get the Oly A standard and make her way onto the team.
• Men's 100 - Tyson Gay smoked the track. American Record in the quarters (9.77) and the fastest all time in the finals @ 9.68. Unfortunately, the wind was over the allowable, so it won't go into the record books. But the guy was flying. He came out well, had great initial drive phase, and his form over the last 50 meters was a thing of beauty.
• Women's Heptathlon - Diana Pickler had to stay within 1.5 seconds of GiGi Johsnon in the final event (the 800) to hold onto her third place slot. She stuck to her like glue, set a Heptathlon PR for the event, finish less than a second behind GiGi and booked her Oly ticket.
• Women's 400 hurdles - Queen Harrison drives over the last couple of hurdles from lane 8, and pulls off an upset 2nd place finish.
• Men's Pole Vault - 40 year old Jeff Hartwig goes 18-8 for 2nd place and to represent us old guys at the big show.

More as the week progresses.

TB