Sanya Richards celebrates anchoring home the Texas team (© Kirby Lee)
Norman, Oklahoma, USA The final day of the Big 12 Conference, this annual 12 universities' student athletics meet took place yesterday (1 May), highlighted by a closely fought men's 400m, and a 22.75 run from Sanya Richards in the women's 200m.
Wariner - "Now I know I can run it" - Men's 400m
Texan Jeremy Wariner overtook his Baylor University teammate, Darold Williamson, to finish first in the Big 12 men's 400 metres in 44.48. But the tall (1.90) 20-year-old Texan lost the first place medal and the world's fastest time for 2004 on a disqualification for a lane violation. Still, Wariner didn't consider the day a total loss: "Now I know I can run it," he said two hours after the race.
Official 44.79 win for Williamson
The two staged a thriller, with Williamson running a big second turn and coming into the home straight with a 2-3 meter lead. But Wariner caught him 10m from the line, and Williamson faltered in the final stride or two to finish in 44.79, which turned out to be the official winning time.
Today, despite the DQ, was clearly Wariner's day, but the two teammates are metres ahead of the rest of the collegiate 400m group this year, (and at this point of the whole world, for that matter). They seem so evenly matched that in the three remaining races of the American season in which coach Clyde Hart must run them against each other - the NCAA regionals, the NCAA championships, and the Olympic Trials - who will finish ahead of whom will likely remain in doubt until the final strides, as it did today.
Richards sprint double
The only 400-metre runner here in a class with Williamson and Wariner didn't run the 400 today - but she did win the women's 100 and 200. Sanya Richards' time in the 100 was ordinary (11.32); the 200, however, was something else.
Richards came off the curve a couple of metres behind LaVerne Jones of Oklahoma (and the U.S.Virgin Islands). But Richards ran down Jones and nailed her at the finish line - winning in 22.75 to Jones' 22.81, the fourth and fifth fastest times so far this year.
Behind them were three others who made it into top 20 - Ashlee Williams, 23.05, Shereeffa Lloyd, 23.10, and Jerrika Chapple, 23.13. The 19-year-old Chapple also edged into the national scene by winning the women's 400 in 51.92.
Jonathan Johnson, ranked third among Americans at 800m last year, won the men's 800 here pretty much as he pleased in 1:47.12, and came back to turn in the fastest 4x400 split, 45.0. The women's 800 was won by 18-year-old Oklahoman Jessica Eldridge, who trailed early but rallied to win with a desperate last-step lunge in 2:07.62 from Katie Scarlett of Texas. 45 minutes later, Eldridge turned up in the 5000m, where she finished fifth - and then asked her coach if she could go for a run!
The men's 5000 was won easily by Dathan Ritzenhein in 14:08.40 - not especially notable except that some 20 hours earlier and 2,000 kilometres farther west he had set an American collegiate record of 27:38.50 in a race at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Click here for race report from Cardinal Invitational.
Myerscough completes double with 63.40m Discus PB
In two field events of international note, Carl Myerscough (GBR), who won the shot put yesterday at 20.66, today scored an upset in the Discus with a personal best of 63.40m, and Latvian Ineta Radevica, yesterday's winner in the women's long jump at 6.48, won the triple jump today with 13.93w.
Previous Big 12 report click here
For FULL RESULTS click here
