Tom Pappas celebrates on the way to winning the 2003 US Decathlon title (© Getty Images)
Palo Alto, California, USAKelli White scored her second individual event win with a 200 metres victory, and a pair of 36-year-old past World Champions again found their way to the top of the victory platform as the final session of the US Championships featured the women in the spotlight on Sunday 22 June.
White, already the US 100 metres champion, added the 200 title with a convincing 22.21 run, the fastest non-altitude-aided time of this season. Friday, she had said that “in my heart, I’m still a 200-metres runner”, and the two-metres lead she crafted through the turn was all she needed to defeat Torri Edwards (22.45), and high school runner Allyson Felix (22.59), the event’s world leader, whose own success came through a miraculous recovery from a hamstring cramp in the semi-final earlier today.
“I wanted to come here and double,” said White later. “I wanted this so badly, I cried tears of joy, instead of the tears of pain I cried last year (when she tore a plantar fascia).”
With a double team spot just as in 2001, White thus finds herself with the same maniacal eleven-race schedule in Paris that Marion Jones always faced. But a benevolent schedule maker has ensured she should be finished with work on the final day in Paris, just in case the Men’s Javelin competition is interesting.
Three-time women’s 100m Hurdles World Champion Gail Devers now also faces that same grueling race schedule, after capturing a ninth national crown in her speciality since 1991. On Friday, her third-place performance in the 100 metres ensured her a place in that event, too, plus a chance at running the short relay. Devers is quite familiar with the flat sprint, having won two Olympic golds in the event.
Today’s Hurdle race was typical Devers, though - a quick start and a technically fluid skimming of the ten hurdles en-route to a season best 12.61. Devers had no room for error this time, as America’s fastest hurdler of the year, Miesha McKelvy, was bearing down on her at the finish and, with 12.62, just missing in an effort to steal the race at the end.
Edmonton fifth placer Jenny Adams held off Sydney bronze medallist Melissa Morrison for the third team position, 12.68 to 12.70.
“I injured myself at the Penn Relays and took three weeks off, doing a test race at Prefontaine (25 May) to make sure the leg was ready for me to go back and train,” said Devers. “I couldn’t make up for those lost three weeks and I wanted to work on my speed, so I decided to enter the 100 metres at the Championships. But it’s been a long four days for me, with six races.”
Jearl Miles Clark’s first national title dates back to 1993, at a time when she was a 400 metres runner and won the World Championships in that event. But today, she took her third crown in the 800 metres in a stunning wire-to-wire 1:58.84.
Last year’s winner, Nicole Teter, was second in 1:59.91, while Jen Toomey claimed the final team spot with 2:00.12, equaling her PB exactly.
“It’s been windy all week, and I had every intention of letting someone else take the lead,” remarked Miles Clark. “But I got the lead, and it felt really good. I didn’t want to lead, but it felt really smooth. I felt Nicole at 600 metres, but my plan was to ‘wind it up and move for home’ at that point.”
“My goal was to make the top three, not necessarily to win,” said runner-up Teter, whose competition has been severely limited the past year due to a variety of injuries. “It’s an honour to be second behind Jearl. She’s an incredible runner, with the American outdoor record. I don’t know if I would have responded any differently with more training. For the amount of training I’ve had, going under two minutes was much more than I had expected.”
Only three weeks after his second-place Decathlon performance at Götzis - a PB 8585 - and with no real challenger in sight, Tom Pappas could have taken the easy road and just marked time for two days on his way to a Paris team position. Instead, the Sydney fifth placer charged ahead from the very start, posting an incredible 4691 PB the first day, and continuing on to an 8784 career best, a 199-point improvement on his performance earlier in the month.
The score moved Pappas into the seventh position among history’s ten-eventers, with only Atlanta champion Dan O’Brien ahead of him on the US list. Along the way, Pappas equalled or exceeded PBs in three events.
The usually stolid Pappas admitted that the past two days were good for him. “I’m relatively healthy and I’m on a real high after this meet. I think it’s going to take this [level of] score to win at the Worlds. After the Long Jump (PB of 7.96), I thought I had a chance for a big score.”
Bryan Clay (8482) and Paul Terek (8275), both with personal bests, will accompany Pappas to Paris. Clay’s total was significantly helped by a 67.77 javelin effort, which added more than nine metres to his previous PB.
And soon-to-be-38 Kip Janvrin, who finished fifth with 7918, marked yet another milestone by completing his 79th Decathlon competition out of 81 starts in a career stretching back to 1984.
The Men’s 400m Hurdles was a back-and-forth affair on a breezy track, with World Junior bronze medallist Bershawn Jackson and Joey Woody trading the lead through the first 250 metres. But in the final straight, Sydney Olympian Eric Thomas decided that today was to be his day, and a powerful close brought him to his first national title in 48.76.
Jackson didn’t lose contact and placed second with 49.01, while Woody needed a deep lean at the tape to snare third from a late blitz by Sydney fourth placer (and defending champion) James Carter, 49.22 to 49.23.
Thomas was elated with his first trip to the winner’s circle. “It was my first time winning here after ten years, and I’ll tell you that it’s sweet. I’ve worked hard for this and I thought it should have come earlier, but I’ll take it today.” Like Kelli White, Eric Thomas has been trained for three years by Remi Korchemny in nearby Hayward.
Jackson, the current US list leader, admitted that he was “nervous, but also excited because it was the first time I’ve competed against these runners I look up to. I’ve been dealing with a hernia for two months, and I had to take two weeks’ bed rest. Now, I’m hoping to make it through the summer without surgery.”
With an automatic Paris entry for the 100 metres, Maurice Greene’s only focus at the Championships was scheduled to be the 200. But the 5.3 headwind he encountered - the strongest of yesterday’s five heats - also gave him one of the slowest qualifying times and, coupled with some back luck, led to an assignment in lane one of his semifinal.
Greene coped with the problem gamely, pushing as much as he could on the curve, given the tight radius. But coming into the straight, he was too far behind to challenge for one of the top places, and his 20.44 barely scraped through to the final round.
Bad luck again put Greene in lane one for the final, at which point coach John Smith entered the picture and called a halt to his protégé’s further participation.
“Maurice has a wild card and he’s in the World Championships (in the 100 Metres). I think it’s more important for him to just let it go here and get it back ‘on the other side’. It’s a little painful to sit in the stands and watch them run, but I’m just happy he’s still healthy.” Smith indicated that Greene was suffering to a small degree from tendinitis in the right knee which was becoming irritated when running a curve. “He has no problem running the straightaway, though,” Smith quickly added.
The commotion surrounding Greene’s abdication drew attention unfairly away from the runners who did compete in the tightly bunched final, as the final straightaway seemed to coalesce the runners rather than separate them.
Darvis Patton pulled slightly ahead at the tape and won in a season-best 20.15, followed by John Capel (20.17) and J.J. Johnson (20.22). Former World Indoor champion Shawn Crawford attested to the closeness of the finish, as he placed only sixth with a 20.35.
David Krummenacker has the best credentials of any American middle-distance runner at the moment, but a hamstring strain a week before the Championships put his participation in doubt. With three days of intensive massage treatment, the World Indoor 800 Metres champion was able to return to form, running conservatively by necessity in the preliminary rounds before powering to a season-best 1:45.53 win today.
Khadevis Robinson (1:46.21) was second, while early leader Jonathon Johnson - whose advantage during the first 600 metres grew to as much as ten metres at times - held on for third (1:46.76) ahead of Floyd Thompson (1:46.78).
“The main thing today was just to stay out of trouble,” Krummenacker said in reviewing the race. “I knew the pace early on was a little hot, and I was a little tentative at first. I didn’t want to start out so fast the first 150 metres, just to be a little extra cautious about the hamstring. I just wanted to stay relaxed and stay where I could be in a good position with 200 to go. Fortunately, I was able to squeeze by Jonathon on the inside and also hold off the other guys at the end.”
The slow, tactical pace of the Men’s 1500 metres ensured that it would be a kicker’s finish, and two-time US indoor champion Jason Lunn had the best kick of the field, winning in 3:44.00. Last year’s runner-up, Bryan Berryhill, took the same position with 3:44.30, while last week’s NCAA champion, Grant Robison, ran well over the final straight to nab third in 3:44.83, just clipping off Michael Stember (3:45.14) at the finish.
None in the field has the “A” qualifying mark of 3:34.90, so the performance chase has officially started.
Kenta Bell won his first national outdoor Triple Jump title with a late-round 17.59, just edging World Indoor silver medallist Walter Davis, who had taken the lead with 17.55 on the previous trip down the runway. Tim Rusan was a distant third at 17.19.
The Women’s Triple Jump was won for the second straight year by US-born but Cuban-raised Yuliana Perez with a PB 14.23. Although Teresa Bundy (13.79) and Monica Cabbler (13.46) took the next two places, Perez will be the lone representative in Paris unless another competitor achieves the “A” standard of 14.20.
Although today saw Jeff Hartwig’s fourth US title in the Men’s Pole Vault, it was his first such win since 1999 which involved an international team trials. The American record holder jumped a 5.70 with a clean record before missing three times at 5.80. It was enough to defeat training partner Derek Miles and Edmonton finalist Tim Mack, both of whom also had first-attempt jumps at 5.70 but had been spotty in the previous heights.
Sydney champion Nick Hysong had two close attempts at a potentially winning 5.75, but ended up fifth at 5.65.
A winner in the Women’s High Jump at Cobb Track and Angell Field two weeks ago at the Oracle Grand Prix meeting, Amy Acuff also added a victory today with 1.95 for her fourth national title. Gwen Wentland (1.92) and Tisha Waller (1.92) followed, and all three will be in Paris.
