Lauryn Williams of the USA wins the women's 100m final (© Getty Images)
The organisers of the 99th annual Millrose Games - IAAF Indoor Permit meeting - which takes place on 3 February 2006 in New York’s world famous Madison Square Garden, have announced the first top names for the meeting, Lauryn Williams and Bernard Lagat.
Lauryn Williams, who took the women’s 100m World title this summer in Helsinki also took gold in the 4x100m relay. The 22-year-old out of the University of Miami in 2004 took the NCAA title at 100m before notching an Olympic silver medal in Athens. In the Millrose Games she will contest the 60m.
Steeped in history, the Millrose Games began in 1908 at a local armory the same year its parent, the Millrose Athletic Association, was formed as a recreational club by the employees of the John Wanamaker Department Store. "Millrose" was the name of the country home of Rodman Wanamaker, son of the founder, and the famed Wanamaker Mile has long been the cornerstone of the event.
When winning this year’s Wanamaker Mile, Bernard Lagat broke the legendary Eamonn Coghlan’s 24-year-old Millrose record just months after earning a 2004 Olympic 1500m silver medal for Kenya. The multiple global medallist at 1500m, who is also the reigning World Indoor champion at 3000m, is now an American citizen, and in 2005 broke the national record over 1500m.
The Millrose Games which is the oldest continuing sporting event held in Madison Square Garden, where it moved in 1914, will be presented in 2006 as a collaboration between USA Track & Field and Global Athletics & Marketing, Inc., which also owns or manages three other track events in USATF’s Visa Championship Series. Now in its second year, the Visa Championship Series is USATF’s elite series of nationally-televised competitions, composed of a season-long battle for individual performance points and the crowning of two Visa Champions.
Barbara Huebner for the IAAF