January 2004 Issue

U.S. Men's Olympic Marathon Trials Preview

Khalid Khannouchi is out (see p. 18); defending champion Rod DeHaven is hurt and self-assessed at only a 1% chance of toeing the line; the A-standard has been eased to 2:15:00. With these profound changes, the question is more wide open than ever: who will score the trips to Athens at the U.S. men's Olympic Marathon Trials on February 7?

Whereas the U.S. had just 4 runners-Khannouchi, Alan Culpepper, Meb Keflezighi and Dan Browne-under the old standard of 2:12:00, 13 have run sub-2:15.

Now, says Keflezighi's coach, Bob Larsen, "They can...

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

A Stanford Avalanche

Cardinal Teams Used New Coaches, Old Methods

by Sean Hartnett

Waterloo, Iowa-Celebrating their sweep of the NCAA Championships team trophies, the Stanford cross country squads gathered atop the awards stand and sang out a Cardinal fight song that echoed far across the prairie outside host school Northern Iowa.

The only two previous groups to win both the men's and women's races in the same year were Wisconsin '85 and Stanford '96.

The men's team started off the day packing 6 runners into the top 13, scoring a mere 24 points and a meet record 150-point margin of victory. In the eyes of many, this Card group ranks among the best teams in the history of the meet (see p. 12).

The women's team capped off the day by ending BYU's two-year grip on the team title with a 120-128 win.

While the two Stanford teams were obviously legacies of Vin Lananna and Mike Reilly's administrative juggernaut, they succeeded under the leadership of new coaches Andy Gerard and Dena Evans, and reveled in the emergence of frontrunners Ryan Hall and Sara Bei (see p. 13).

Now, he looks ahead to the Olympic season, his eyes especially fixed on two objectives...

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

The Guy Stanford Couldn't Beat

by Sean Hartnett

Crossing a drainage rut 400m from the NCAA finish, Dathan Ritzenhein trailed Ryan Hall by 5m as he summoned a last-ditch effort to rectify a bad situation. "I had to dig deep there, and I wasn't going to be happy with the outcome if I crossed 2nd," he said.

"The Ritz" almost instantly gathered his arms and legs in a flurry of motion that sent him past Hall and to a 5m lead of his own that he held to the finish.

Ritzenhein is not a particularly formidable looking athlete. Even among distance runners he does not stand out in physical stature-unless you happen to see his will take over with a race on the line. In this mode Ritz is a superior athlete and a dominating competitor who covers ground at a frenzied pace as he beams his boundless energy dead ahead.

Ritzenhein finished 4th in the NCAA as a Colorado frosh, but last fall, after redlining his training on mountainous terrain, he was knocked off-track by a frustrating series of injuries including the double-whammy of stress fractures to both femurs.

After months in the pool and on a bike, he returned to near-normal training in October, and came into the race far from top form, but starving for competition...

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

A Warm Afterglow

The chill was forgotten as the Card men basked in victory

by Sean Hartnett

In 2001 the nucleus of a senior-dominated Stanford team charged to the front of the NCAA Cross, only to be nipped at the line by Colorado. They moved on from that disappointment to simply dominate the '02 race and continued on this time around. The Cards have averaged a mere 54 points in the last three editions of the meet.

An hour after they romped to their second consecutive title, we gathered all seven of the Cardinal harriers to discuss their remarkable run...

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

Flanagan & The Cardinal

by Charlie Mahler

The NCAA women's race turned out as expected: defending champion Shalane Flanagan won comfortably while arch-rivals Brigham Young and Stanford waged a much-anticipated-and tight-team battle.

Flanagan bolted ahead of the field at the outset marked just by...

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

Underachievers Achieve

Former high school stars Ryan Hall and Sara Bei saw their careers reborn this fall

by Sean Hartnett & Charlie Mahler

Stanford's sweep of the NCAA team trophies was led by Ryan Hall (2nd) and Sara Bei (3rd), two runners who made huge strides in the 12 months since last year's championships. Both had ranked among the nation's most accomplished preps, and arrived on The Farm in the fall of '01 with huge expectations. But in their first two years at Stanford both had shown flashes of brilliance in early-season races only to come up a bit short of expectations at Nationals.

As frosh, Hall finished 76th, Bei 89th. Last year Hall was Stanford's No. 6 man, but fell from the Cardinal pack over the final 5K. Bei disappeared from the lead pack late and finished 57th as BYU edged past Stanford for the team title.

Hall took leave from Stanford over the winter quarter to recharge and refocus. "That was...

(for more-as well as coverage of the Foot Locker HS Nationals and reports from all the other collegiate divisions-read the January Issue of Track & Field News)

by Jon Hendershott

Double world champion Dwight Phillips has made steady progress while flying to the No. 1 long jump slot in the world.

From a No. 1 U.S. Ranking in ’00 as a young Arizona State grad to reaching the top of the global ladder in ’03, the Georgia native has helped lead a U.S. mini-renaissance along with Savanté Stringfellow, Miguel Pate and Walter Davis.

His career has reflected his belief in the importance of consistency—in physical training, mental preparation and competitive results. But no campaign ever has gone better than last season’s.

After winning ’03’s Triple Crown—World Champs indoors and out plus the Grand Prix Final—taking his first U.S. crown and ranking No. 1, Phillips now aims his total focus on the biggest goal, an Olympic victory in Athens. He also knows that meeting the world’s top jumpers in the biggest meets always brings out his best:

T&FN: In six of your nine long jump wins in ’03 you produced the winning jump in the final round, and at the outdoor Worlds it was in the fifth round. Is that how you like a competition to unfold?

Phillips: I just use the competition to motivate me. The guys out there provide good competition, they really motivate me and in rounds 4-5-6 is when I normally produce my best jumps. It just takes me a little while to get started, to get revved up.

T&FN: Did a performance like the World Indoors, where you come from behind to win the gold, convince you that you could become the world’s best jumper?
Phillips: It really started toward the end of…

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

The high school mile recordholder is finding success going long

by Charlie Mahler

That silence you heard after Alan Webb outkicked Daniel Lincoln to win the USATF Club Cross Country Championships was just Webb’s legion of Internet detractors reconsidering things.

Webb, the high school miling mega-star turned premature post-collegian, hadn’t exactly had a smooth run of late. And the cacklers had been circling. But a solid stretch of over-distance racing, capped by his homestretch victory over NCAA 10K champion Lincoln at Greensboro suggests that the live-on-SportsCenter Webb might be worth tuning in again…

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

T&FN Top 40s

100 METERS

9.93	Patrick Johnson (Aus) NR
9.94	*Maurice Greene (adi)
9.95	Deji Aliu (Ngr)
9.97	*John Capel (adi)
        Uchenna Emedolu (Ngr)
        *Justin Gatlin (Nik)
9.99	Kim Collins (StK)
        *Mickey Grimes (Nik)
10.00	Frank Fredericks (Nam)
        *Darvis Patton (adi)
(10)

(for more depth and all the other events, read the January Issue of Track & Field News)

Drug Wars: Zero Tolerance

Greensboro, North Carolina-Reeling from the negative publicity rained down for months by news of THG/Modafinil-related doping violations, USATF took action at its Annual Meeting to institute lifetime bans for athletes caught positive for steroids (current penalties for stimulants, major or minor, would apparently stay as-is).

After proposing a new Zero-Tolerance Drug Policy in October, the federation brought a proposal to change its bylaws to include the new 1-strike policy, and the change gained momentum when USATF's Athlete's Advisory Committee, made up of active and recently retired elite competitors, voted unanimously in support. Their poll followed an earlier unanimous vote by USATF's Board of Directors in favor of the measure.

The athletes added a resolution of their own: "The AAC invites the world and the IAAF to impose the first-time steroid offense to be a lifetime ban."

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