• ALL TH ST N RUNNN, JUMPN THROWN • MAY 2011 www.trackandfieldnews.com A Long Look At Hurdle King David Oliver Jeremy Wariner Ready For 43s Again Tyson Gay Charting His Own Course World Cross Country Championships Outdoor Season In Full Swing World XC T&FN Interview: Ashton Eaton Medal For $3.99 US Shalane $4.50 Canada Flanagan p01.indd 1 3/30/11 12:54 PM RngNtwk_BOLT_8.125x10.875_flbleed.pdf 1 3/29/11 4:33 PM C M Y CM MY CY CMY K PUMA’S NEW LIGHTWEIGHT FAAS 500. USAIN BOLT. WORLD’S FASTEST MAN. p52.indd 52 3/29/11 3:09 PM p02.indd 2 3/23/11 2:58 PM Andrew Riley heads into the outdoor season as the winner of two straight NCAA titles Volume 64, No. 5 May 2011 ANDY KIYOKAWA ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Meet The Stars Subscriptions Major Features The regular U.S. rate (2nd-class mail) is Kellie Wells ........................11 $43.95 one year, $82 two years, $120 three Justin Gatlin .......................17 years. For 1st-class add $20 per year. Building A Hurdler From Ground Up The regular Canadian rates are $55/$104/ How David Oliver became the world’s best Morgan Uceny ...................18 $153; add $14 per year for air. 6 For other nations, only airmail is available, Amy Hastings ...................25 at $69/$132/$195. T&FN Interview: Ashton Eaton Indoor AOYs .....................41 Mailing Is the hept WR holder ready for a big decathlon? Track & Field News (ISSN 0041 0284) is 12 published monthly by Track & Field News, Departments 2570 W. El Camino Real, Suite 480, Mtn. View, CA 94040. Periodicals postage paid Tyson Gay Seeking His Own Path From The Editor .....................4 at Mountain View, California, and additional Derek Miles Poster ............ 26 mailing offices. The fleet American looks to stay atop sprinting Postmaster: send address changes to 16 Track & Field News, 2570 W. El Camino Real, Making Tracks ...................33 Suite 480, Mountain View, CA 94040. High School List ................36 Canadian Post Publications Mail Agree- Jeremy Wariner Thinking 43s Track Shorts .......................42 ment No. # 40065056 Canadian Return Address: D Global Mail, It’s time for the Texan to go sub-44 again 23 On Your Marks ..................44 4960-2 Walker Road, Windsor, ON N9A 6J3. Landmarks .........................44 Track & Field News, Status Quo .........................45 2570 W. El Camino Real, Suite 480, Two U.S. Medals At World Cross Mountain View, CA 94040 26 Shalane Flanagan, women take bronzes Last Lap .............................46 Fax 650-948-9445 For The Record ..................46 Phones 9-5 Pacific Time Stat Corner .........................47 Business—650/948-8188 ([email protected]) 2011 Indoor Finales Letters.................................49 ([email protected]) The undercover campaign comes to a climax 27 Schedule .............................50 ([email protected]) ([email protected]) Next Month ......................50 Editorial—650/948-8188 Triple Triple Power • cover photo of Shalane Flanagan ([email protected]) 30 The Florida Gators have a fabulous triple jump trio by Jiro Mochizuki/Photo Run • © Track & Field News 2011 The Bible Of The Sport December 2007 — 3 p03 (TOC).indd 3 3/31/11 2:46 PM Track & Field News The Bible Of The Sport Since 1948 from the Founded by Bert & Cordner Nelson E. GARRY HILL — Editor ED FOX — Publisher editor EDITORIAL STAFF Sieg Lindstrom ..........Managing Editor Jon Hendershott ......... Associate Editor BUSINESS STAFF Janet Vitu ..............Executive Publisher I REMEMBER THE EVENING WELL. It was November 21, 2009, at a ritzy hotel Jenny McGinnes ...........Office Manager in Monaco (hey, it’s a dark and lonely job, but somebody has to do it). The IAAF, Teresa Tam ......................... Art Director with great fanfare, rolled out its new concept—one designed to breathe life into the WORLD RANKINGS COMPILERS international circuit—the Diamond League. The core principle was near and dear to Jonathan Berenbom, Richard Hymans, Dave my heart: “guaranteed” head-to-head com- Johnson, Nejat Kök, R.L. Quercetani (Emeritus) petition among the sport’s biggest names. Is the Diamond The organizers proudly announced, “The SENIOR EDITORS Bob Bowman (Walking), Roy Conrad (Special IAAF Diamond League is especially pleased League delivering Projects), Bob Hersh (Eastern), Ben Hall (In- to confirm that with the racing commitments ternet), Mike Kennedy (High School Women), what it promised? of Bolt, Gay and Powell secured, every one of Walt Murphy (Relays), Jack Shepard (High the 14 meetings will see at least one of these School Men) sprint stars compete; many meetings will U.S. CORRESPONDENTS have two of them in action and a lucky few will have the three fastest men on show.” John Auka, Steve Bailey, Bob Bettwy, Bret The speedy trio were among 9 of the sport’s biggest names who were designated Bloomquist, Bill Buchalter, Mike Byrnes, Tom as “IAAF Diamond League Ambassadors.” Unfortunately, that proved to be akin to Casacky, Pete Cava, Gene Cherry, Keith Conning, Toby Cook, Cheryl Davis, being one of the first into King Tut’s tomb. The curse struck six of them: Bolt’s season came to an end on August 6th, but that Elliott Denman, Peter Diamond, Andy Fried- lander, John Gillespie, Becca Gillespy, Rich was longer than countryman Powell’s (July 16). Gay’s year had a hiatus between May Gonzalez, Ed Gordon, Ed Grant, George Grenier, 16 and July 3. Sanya Richards-Ross was felled at USATF. Kenenisa Bekele didn’t run Sean Hartnett, on the track at all. Yelena Isinbaeva burned out and didn’t vault outdoors. Jeff Hollobaugh, Mike Hubbard, Tom Jennings, Despite the injuries, the sprint trio did appear in 12 of the 14 DL meets (9 in 100, Roger Jennings, Andrew Jensen, Tom Jordan, 3 in the 200), but the sum total of the promised gaudy sequence of head-to-heads Kim Koffman, Don Kopriva, Ruth Laney, Dan expressed itself as Gay beating Bolt in Stockholm, Gay beating Powell in Gateshead Lilot, Charlie Mahler, Glen McMicken, Larry Newman, Lee Nichols, Jack Pfeifer, Shawn Price, and Bolt beating Powell in Paris. Not good enough. Not the IAAF’s fault, but none- theless not good enough. Harv Rentschler, Kirk Reynolds, Jim Rorick, Brian Russell, Rich Sands, Kevin Saylors, Mike With that kind of shortfall in the DL’s first year, it’s only logical to expect that no Scott, Jim Spier, Don Steffens, Larry Story, Carol path has gone unexplored in making sure that Year 2 fulfills the promises of the rollout. R. Swenson, Gary Trigueiro, Steve Vaitones, Apparently there are some/too many roads not taken. As noted in Last Lap (see p. 46), David Woods Gay’s agent says his client is unlikely to meet Bolt before the World Championships, INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS which means that Zürich (DL 100 final) and Brussels (DL 200 final) would be about it. Steven Downes, Matti Hannus, Ian Hodge, Jonas What we have been “guaranteed,” so far, is Bolt vs. Powell in Rome, and Gay vs. Hedman, Atsushi Hoshino, Mike Hurst, Mirko Powell in Birmingham and London. That’s a far cry from “many meetings will have Jalava, Paul Jenes, Alfons Juck, two of them in action and a lucky few will have the three fastest men on show.” A. Lennart Julin, Duncan Mackay, Peter Mat- Which leads to the many-carat gorilla in the room. Why? Two reasons. thews, Phil Minshull, K. Ken Nakamura, Bob Ramsak, Sergey Tikhonov, Chris Turner, Mel The first, one which drags our sport down to the level of boxing, is that too many Watman superstars avoid head-to-head competition. It’s understandable, since you can put PHOTOGRAPHERS in a claim for No. 1 so long as you’re not losing to anybody. And, in a sense, this can Claus Andersen, Errol Anderson, Greg Arm- actually be good for the sport, because the anticipation of a summit meeting only strong, David Benyak, John Burke, Rich Clarkson, makes the actual meeting more exciting. Giancarlo Colombo, Lisa Coniglio, Tony Duffy, The second, and most germane, is as they said in Jerry Maguire, “Show me the David B. Dumas, Don Gosney, Anthony R. Jones, money.” The superduperstars can claim so much in appearance fees that few meets Kirby Lee, Bill Leung, Jiro Mochizuki, Brian J. can afford two of them. Does Meet X really want to burn a huge portion of its budget Myers, Randy J. Osga, David Peterson, Victor Sailer, Mark Shearman, Kim Spir, Geoff Thurner, on one event, or is it better served just buying the one big name for that event, and Cheryl Treworgy, Chai von der Laage then making other events topflight with similar purposes? The DL concept was supposed to find a way around these problems. What is it? 4 — May 2011 Track & Field News p04 (editor).indd 4 4/5/11 9:31 AM Your SuperSource for always ready to serve you with the best selection, service and value! PO Box 8090, Cranston, RI 02920 • 800-556-7464 • mfathletic.com 530-24520 HSAd_TFN_2-11.indd 1 12/3/10 11:04 AM p05.indd 5 3/23/11 3:04 PM by Sieg Lindstrom “Winners find a way to win; they will put together a program that allows them to win,” says the veteran coach, continuing, “Not everybody wants to win. The idea that everybody in the sport of track & field really wants to win is totally inaccurate. Less than 2% of the people really want to win on the terms necessary to win.” That’s how outspoken Brooks Johnson Building A sees it. His Exhibit A for the “less than 2%” is American Record holder David Oliver, the undefeated T&FN U.S. Athlete Of The Year in ’10, and the favorite to win 110-hurdle gold at this summer’s World Championships. When Oliver—primarily a football player whose 13.55 had earned him the last qualifying Hurdler From spot in the Olympic Trials—graduated from Howard in December of ’04 little about his résumé said future world-beater: one NCAA 4th, one Indoor 5th, a DNF in his OT appearance.