August 2003 Issue

Heading For Paris

by Garry Hill

Stanford, California, June 19–22—It’s not quite the Olympic Trials, but in terms of sheer excitement it’s tough to find any other meet that provides as many days of nonstop thrills as does the USATF Championships when it doubles as the World Championships Trials.

This year’s version, with August trips to Paris on the line, was no exception, with close-close finishes being the rule rather than the exception.

One performer who didn’t follow the rule, and was clearly the meet’s outstanding athlete, was sprint doubler Kelli White (see p. 23), who

(for more, read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

The Start Was The Key

by Jon Hendershott

WORLD RECORD HOLDER Tim Montgomery got to hold court with assembled reporters for about five minutes before 100 winner Bernard Williams entered the interview tent at Stanford.

Monty lamented the poor start which from the get-go had doomed his hopes to regain the title he last won in ’01. Then the 25-year-old Williams mounted the podium and the major difference between the two became immediately evident.

Around Williams’ neck hung the winner’s gold medal, suspended from a red-white-and-blue ribbon. The award graphically represented the wide gap between the performances of each sprinter.

Then Williams explained the key element between their races: “My start, oh man, it was one of my best.”…

(for more, read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

Lunn Takes Long Route

by Dan Lilot

JASON LUNN’S slow-paced 1500 victory may not have been the most exciting of Nationals races, but for him it served as reinforcement that the changes he had undertaken this season, in both training and tactics, have been spot-on.

“The past few years I’d run really well indoors but then sort of fizzled out later in the season,” says the 28-year-old Stanford grad . “And I’m not a typical indoor runner. I’m a bit bigger and heavier (6-1/157). So I had to ask myself why I was faltering outdoors.”

The answer: “I realized I’m the kind of runner that runs a good 1500 off of mileage. Indoors I’d always do decent mileage and run well.”

Lunn was USATF runner-up indoors in both ’00 and ’01 before winning the last two years. “I ran 3:55 at Tyson this year off complete strength, so I talked to [Nike Farm Team coach Frank Gagliano] and said,…”

(for more, read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

Bell Takes Cerebral Approach

by Jon Hendershott

CALL HIM “the thinking man’s triple jumper.” That’s how Kenta (Ken-TAY) Bell sees himself. After winning his first national title, the 26-year-old Northwestern Louisiana grad says, “I take the mental approach of scripting how a competition should go.

“Most jumpers aim for a big first jump. I approach the first jump as the opportunity to make sure I get five more. I don’t hold back on my first, but see it as getting a ‘safe’ jump. On the second jump, I try to jump farther than the first; then I go for a good one on the third.

“For jumps 4–6, I should be leading or in the top 3. Then…”

(for more read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

Long Road To The Top

by Sieg Lindstrom

BEFORE THIS NATIONALS, 33-year-old discus champ Carl Brown had established himself with top-8 finishes ever since ’98, the season of his previous-high finish of 4th. But the results did not reveal Brown’s unconventional road to the title.

Perhaps a long, spinning discus flight is the more appropriate metaphor, for Brown had flung himself out there again and again, despite often turbulent winds in his life.

“It’s an awesome feeling,” he says. “I’ve been trying to do this for a long time.”

At Michigan’s Albion High he played basketball and ran track. “I’ve done almost every event except distance, obviously,” he says, “and the pole vault and hurdles.” As a 6-4/200 senior, Brown threw the discus “110, 120ft, I don’t know” but heaved the shot “a long 53” and placed 4th at State. …

(for more, read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

by Jon Hendershott

Scoring a pair of decathlon PRs in major meets over the course of three weekends wasn’t what Tom Pappas had in mind before either Gˆtzis or USATF. But he’ll gladly take both.

“I was hoping for a PR at Nationals, but I didn’t think it would be an 8700-plus score,” says the Knoxville-based 10-eventer. “I hoped for a score in the high-8700s/low-8800s at Worlds, not Nationals.”

As notable as his Gˆtzis total of 8585 was—making him the No. 6 American ever at the time—Pappas was on a roll at Stanford after just the second event. His opening 10.78 century put him 30 points behind his pace in Austria, but he never trailed again.

He completed day 1 with a career-high 4691 points, 108 up on his prior best. A 17-3/4 vault, matching his career high, boosted the margin to 147 after eight events and a closing 4:48.12 in the 1500, 12 seconds faster than in Gˆtzis, gave Pappas 8784 points and the ultimate gap of 199.

On PRing twice so closely, the Oregon native notes.…

(for more read the August issue of Track & Field News)

A Winner At Long Last

by Jon Hendershott

What a time Kelli White picked to win the first major titles in her sprinting career. The 26-year-old Northern California native never won a state prep title, although she did win the U.S. Junior 200 in ’95. But in four seasons at Tennessee, White never won an SEC or NCAA crown. The closest she got was 2nd in the ’98 conference 200.

Nor had she ever won a U.S. Senior title. She ran 2nd in the ’01 Nationals 100 and the ’02 half-lap. She even won the 200 bronze at the ’01 Worlds. Yet White never could score that elusive major victory.

But rise to the occasion at Stanford is just what White did with her PRs of 10.93 and 22.21 to overwhelm both fields. “Not winning a big championship until now is something that never bothered me,” White claims. “I’ve.…”

(for the full story, read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

Kirkland Off To Paris

by Sieg Lindstrom

ANJANETTE KIRKLAND says, “I want my 6-pack back.” In case you’re wondering, the 100H world champion didn’t lose a beer-bet over whether she’d make the team for Paris and get a chance to defend. No, Kirkland is on the team even though she missed the Nationals due to having given birth to daughter Jadin a scant 6 weeks before.

Empowered to hear appeals in such cases, USATF women’s track & field committee chair Stephanie Hightower granted Kirkland’s request to use her defending world champ’s wild-card spot. The U.S. will thus send four women to Paris, Kirkland joining Gail Devers, Miesha McKelvy and Jenny Adams.

The 6-pack Kirkland covets is her formerly rock-hard set of abdominals. …

(for more, read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

Upshaw Now No. 1

by Dan Lilot

GRACE UPSHAW didn’t get nervous during the long jump as she watched Rose Richmond take an early lead. “Nah,” she says. “I was excited. It was better than last year, when we all struggled to jump 21-feet.”

The Cal grad placed 2nd in last year’s Nationals after winning indoors, but later hit the World Champs “B” standard of 21-8 on the nose in Europe. Then, the setback. In a recreational accident she tore the MCL and meniscus in her right knee. Surgery in September kept her out of training until January and forced her to skip indoors. But…

(for more read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

Krummenacker Overcomes

by Sieg Lindstrom

“I don’t look at myself as carrying the torch; I think there’s a lot of us that can kind of pass the torch back and forth and all represent the U.S. well,” says David Krummenacker.

Yet there is no denying that the entire 800/mile U.S. fan base felt a twinge when the 800’s world indoor champion told friends he had injured a hamstring in a workout just a week before his USATF heat. He got through a workout two days later, but three days before the meet started the pain was sharp.

“It was kind of a desperation moment,” Krummenacker says. “I thought both the U.S. Champs and World Champs were out of the question.”…

(for more read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

MJ Praises Washington

By Jon Hendershott

A very interested observer as Tyree Washington rolled to his dominating Nationals 400 win was WR holder Michael Johnson.

A 10-time No. 1 world ranker—including eight straight between ’93 and ’00—Johnson paired with Washington to take the gold and bronze medals at the ’97 Worlds, then both ran on the WR 4x4 team at the ’98 Goodwill Games.

Some Johnson observations: “Right now, Tyree just has to not mess up what he has. He’s very talented and a very hard worker. But in ’99 and ’00 he was trying …

(for more read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

Kilmartin’s Rough Season

by Rich Gonzalez

This was supposed to be the year in which versatile prep phenom Donovan Kilmartin (Eagle, Idaho) was going to become the greatest high school decathlete ever. But the season endured a wrenching twist four days before his state meet in May. The spin cycle has hardly eased since, including a rough outing at the USATF Juniors and most recently, the stunning departure of his expected college coach.

“Dan Pfaff is the reason I’m going to the University of Texas. He understands technique better than anyone else,” said Kilmartin late into his senior year. But earlier this month, it was announced Pfaff was high-tailing Longhorn Country to take over the coaching reins for Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones (see “Last Lap,” p. 58).

“It’s tough,” said Jim Kilmartin, Donovan’s father, whose entire …

(for more read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

World Youth Champs: Richardson Rising Hurdle Star

by Steven Downes

Sherbrooke, Quebec, July 9-13—Think of the best high school meet you have ever been to, the try to imagine how much better it might be if the best under-18 kids from the rest of the world also showed up and whupped ass. That’s what happened when…

(for more read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

Paris World Champs Predictions

400 Meters
1. Tyree Washington (US)
2. Michael Blackwood (Jam)
3. Calvin Harrison (US)
4. Jerome Young (US)
5. Avard Moncur (Bah)
6. Ingo Schultz (Ger)
7. Marc Raquil (Fra)
8. Greg Haughton (Jam)
9. Brandon Simpson (Jam)
10. Alleyne Francique (Grn)

(for all the other events read the August Issue of Track & Field News; for prediction updates see trackandfieldnews.com)

European Circuit Erupts

A Sampling of the Headlines:

Tired Phillips PRs at 27-8 1/2

Bekele’s Killer Kick

Coby Miller Lane-1 200 WR

Capel Shocks Big 100 Names

WR 15-9 3/4 Vault For Isinbayeva

(for the stories behind these headlines and much more read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

A New Kind of Relay Pool

by Sieg Lindstrom

AT LONG LAST, USATF is reinventing the wheel: “the wheel” in this case being that rear racing slick that seems to blow about every three or four trips around th track, the U.S. short-relay program

Sure, “program” until now has been too strong a word for the task of selecting and preparing relay squads long delegated to Olympic and World Champs coaches in a few fevered, ego-clashing weeks before the major championships…

(for more read the August Issue of Track & Field News)

From The Editor

NOW THAT YOU’VE FINALLY TURNED to the last thing in the issue you actually read (maybe I should just move to the back?), let me ask you a question. Were you stuck in this month’s edition by how easy it was to scan the pages and get a quick enjoyment hit? Not due to anything we did—simply because the preponderance of picture came from the USATF Championships, where the athlete’s bibs had the contestants’ names, both first and last, in easy-to-read letters. Instant recognition. What a concept!…

(for the full opinion, read the August Issue of Track & Field News)