Wallace Spearmon (USA) (© Victah Sailer)
The 2005 NCAA Indoor Championships this weekend (Fri 11 - Sat 12) has lost a good deal of its lustre because of the unusually large number of university athletes who turned professional in 2004 before their four years of collegiate eligibilty had expired.
Among the missing are Olympic 400m and 4x400m gold medalists Jeremy Wariner, DeeDee Trotter and Sanya Richards, and 100m silver medalist Lauryn Williams - and that's a lot of star power. All of them were indoor or outdoor (or both) champions in 2004, and would have been favoured to win here.
In the last week we have even learnt that World Junior 400m champion LaShawn Merritt, 18, who blazed to 44.93 early this season has also turned professional, and if this is correct he will not be taking part in this weekend’s programme. Only Michael Johnson has run 400 metres faster indoors, and he was a mature 27 at the time, at the peak if his powers.
But the beauty of the NCAAs is the never ending pipeline of athletes who enter as teenagers and go through a steady four-year progression from teenagers to young adults. So, even without the presence of the youngsters snatched untimely from their university careers by gold of one sort or another, there are always new ones to be seen as they make their own marks.
Emerging stars in the men's running events include NCAA outdoor champions Tyson Gay and Wallace Spearmon of the University of Arkansas, who top the lists in the sprints (Gay 6.5, Spearmon 20.35), and Canadian Nate Brannen of the University of Michigan, whose 3:55.11 is the fastest of 10 sub-four milers (the Mile is still perhaps the major track event for Americans). In the field events, Andra Manson (2.26 this year) of Texas and Mike Morrison of Florida (2.25) are expected to continue the rivalry of two years ago when they were the number one and two high school high jumpers in the U.S., and Arik Wilson, a third-year student from Indiana University, leads the lists in both horizontal jumps with an 8.12 Long Jump and a 16.83 Triple Jump.
In the women's sprints, two young women from tiny Caribbean islands appear to be the class of the field. Hazel-Ann Regis of Grenada and Louisiana State University leads the lists at 200m (23.02) and 400 (51.47), but close behind her in the 400m at 51.62 is Tiandra Ponteen of St. Kitts and Nevis (she's from Nevis, where they call it Nevis and St. Kitts) who attends the University of Florida. Nicole Cook, an emerging star from the University of Tennessee, leads the 800m list with 2:00.75, and Priscilla Lopes of Canada and the University of Nebraska looks a metre or more better than the rest in the 60m Hurdles.
A good women's High Jump competition looms between Gaelle Niare of Southern Methodist and France and Gerogia Tech's Chaunte Howard, both over 1.90 this winter. Howard, of course, was a member of the U.S.Olympic team with a 1.95 clearance at the U.S. Trials. The other field event pre-meet standout is Candice Scott of the University of Florida, who finished 9th in the Athens Olympic hammer throw and is expected to dominate the weight throw here.
Jim Dunaway for the IAAF
