A wide variety of T&FN tour offerings is available. Make your plans now to join us for one or more of these exciting track and travel opportunities. ~ 2020 ~ ■ OLYMPIC TRIALS. June 19-28. The 2020 Trials will be in Eugene, Oregon, at the exciting new stadium at ■ ~ 2021 ~ Hayward Field built for the 2021 World Championships. U.S. Nationals/WorlD CHampionsHips This facility will have comfortable individual seating Trials, $100 deposit per person now accepted. Prob- (unlike the old bench-type seating at the old stadium) ably Eugene. and these Trials will be the opening showcase for the New Hayward Field. This is the meet that will determine ■ WORLD TRACK & FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPS, the U.S. team for the Tokyo Summer Games, and this Eugene, OR. We are accepting deposits for this, the first is always one of the best meets of the quadrennium. outdoor IAAF World Championships to be held in the Lodging in motels walking distance to stadium. Earli- U.S. We expect to have lodging, walking distance to est signups have best priority for lodging, etc. Current the stadium. $1100 deposit. Aug. 6-15. deposit, $750/person. Still a few spaces remaining. T&FN has operated popular sports tours since 1952 and has taken more than 22,000 fans to 60 countries on five continents. Join us for one (or more) of these great upcoming trips. www.trackandfieldnews.com/tours Track & Field News Tours 2570 W El Camino Real, Suite 220 • Mountain View, CA 94040 [email protected] • Phone 650/948-8188 • Fax 650/948-9445 TABLE OF CONTENTS Volume 72, No. 7 July 2019 From The Editor — The U.S. Still Needs Summer Meets In 2019 ...................................................4 Pre Classic Men — Benjamin Kicks It Off Big ...................................................................5 Darlan Romani Just Kept Getting Better. .8 Pre Classic Women — A Tale Of Two 3000s ....................................................................9 The U.S.’s Potent Women’s Steeplechase Duo .................................................................12 Lausanne Diamond League — Noah Lyles In Rare Company ....................................................14 Monaco Diamond League — World Record Mile For Hassan ....................................................16 Vol Sprint Pair Ready To Go Again ...........................................................................18 Ostrava IWC — A 300 Record Of Sorts For Miller-Uibo .........................................................19 Talence Multis — High Jump, High Score For Thiam ...........................................................20 Jamaican Champs — 2 World Leads, High School Record .......................................................21 An Encore For Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce .......................................................................22 Gyulai Memorial — Taylor Takes A Big TJ 3-Way ..............................................................23 American Record In The Women’s Decathlon .................................................................24 Bush Invitational — A Super Jump Double ....................................................................25 Bryce Hoppel Still Unbeaten In The 800 .......................................................................26 Centrowitz Aiming For Another National Title ................................................................28 T&FN Interview — Will Claye ...............................................................................30 Brooks PR Invitational — Foster Takes HS Mile Lead. 33 New Balance Nationals Boys — Kurt Powdar Cracks 13.30 ......................................................34 New Balance Nationals Girls — Smalls Soars ..................................................................36 USATF Junior Men — Hard To Separate The Hurdlers. .38 USATF Junior Women — Hall Scares Her HS Record ...........................................................39 T&FN’s 63rd National Men’s Relay Rankings — Aggies & Gators Tie .............................................40 Men’s Relay Rankings 2019 — Seasonal Records ...............................................................41 T&FN’s 40th National Women’s Relay Rankings — Aggies Edge Hogs ...........................................43 Women’s Relay Rankings 2019 — Seasonal Records ............................................................44 STATUS QUO .............................................................................................47 LAST LAP ...............................................................................................48 ON YOUR MARKS ........................................................................................50 FOR THE RECORD ........................................................................................52 CALENDAR ..............................................................................................52 Track & Field News July 2019 — 3 From The Editor — The U.S. Still Needs Summer Meets In 2019 by E. Garry Hill [Apologies from your editor, but person- The Oregon folk took a stab at it with al obligations are keeping me from writing a the team-oriented TrackTown Summer column this month. Allow me to attempt to S er ies, but t hat has si lent ly faded away entertain you with a goldie-oldie, a rerun of too. But should it be up to “private my column of August 2018, which retains citizens” to be doing all the heavy much of the relevance it had then as we’re lifting in this regard? What about the on the cusp of the Doha selection meet folks in Indy? more than 2 months ahead of time and the Su r e, USAT F h a s c r e at e d a n ic e l it t le summer-meet problem hasn’t particularly property with May’s Distance Classic been addressed either.] in SoCal. Is this a meet that should be moved a month or so later next year? A call for more U.S. summer meets And shouldn’t the federation be creat- at t he professiona l level is hardly a new ing more meets along this line for next or revolutionary concept. Indeed, the year? (Next year = all years, of course, U.S. could use more high-end domestic but let’s start small.) competition in every month from Janu- We wouldn’t be having this con- ary through August. In every year. But versat ion, of cou rs e, i f t he IAAF had n’t next year, 2019, is special. It has a crying allowed its calendar to be egregiously need for competitive opportunities for disrupted. My August ’15 column was Team USA in not only July and August, titled, “Both of the IAAF presidential but also September, as the IAAF has candidates are talking about calendar thrown a nifty curveball at the sport reform… yesss!” I went on to note that w it h t h e s t ag i ng of t h e l at e s t- eve r World Sergey Bubka had in his manifesto, Championships. Doha’s do in the desert “ Re v ie w i ng t h e i nt e r n at io n a l c a le nd a r will be staged between September 27 to ensure harmonization of key IAAF and October 6. The previous latest any events, regional and national compe- WC has cranked up was August 28 by Rome ’87. itself. That gap is filled thusly at the highest titions.” For his part, Seb Coe said, “I believe S o, wh at ’s t h e USA doi ng a b o ut t h i s t i m i ng? end of competition: after the WCT it’s 3 weeks that the creation of a truly harmonized calendar Back in January of ’15, my column said this: “I with no Diamond League meets and then the is key to the global promotion of track & field. h ave long ra nted about t he t rad it ion a l late -Ju ne final four in 20 days. After that it’s another 3 Li sten i ng to t he Federat ion s a nd ou r broadca st- timing [of the Trials meet] being horribly out of weeks before Doha cranks up. The highest-end e r s, s p o n s or s a nd at h le t e s, it ’s c le a r t h at we n e e d touch with the realities of modern international U.S. performers will have DL opportunities, new competitive structures for the future. We competition, with a too-large break between the but not many. For most it could turn out to be must look at how the format and presentation USATF Championships and the Worlds compro- 9 weeks without competition. And that’s just of competitions like the Diamond League fit mising Team USA’s ability to field the best team the back end. within the overall calendar and how we can possible. Obviously, if you have joined me in On the front end, June sports 5 DL meets, help boost the quality of these competitions b e l iev i ng t h at t h e t y pic a l l at e -Ju n e/m id-Aug u s t not t he least a mong t hem Pre, wh ic h has moved to make each meeting and the overall season gap was bad, imagine how bad it will be when a month later than usual and will be staged on more compelling.” the Worlds moves to late-September. June 30. Then there’s a 3-week gap to the WCT Coe won, of course, and the Doha horse “So the ’19 USATF needs to move. And by that at least has 3 DLs. was already out of the barn. Let’s just hope that a lot. If you’re going to move it, make it a real So I ask this question: for the bulk of the his ongoing efforts to reform the calendar (he move. My suggestion is that it needs to be the WC hopefuls, those not quite good enough to brings it up all the time) bear some fruit. The first weekend of September, leaving two off- garner DL invitations, where are the meets that sport needs cohesion, and the way the DL and weeks before things crank up in Qatar. That will give them a serious chance to hone their the WC are all over the map just isn’t doing us might compromise IAAF thinking on its DL competitive skills? They don’t exist. Where are any good. series a bit, but I think USATF needs to exercise the meets for these people after they’ve made I wou ld not e t h at gol f, de s pit e a l r e ady b e i ng it s t a i l-wag g i ng-t he - dog p ower her e by m a k i ng the team? This is not a new problem, but with one of t he mor e popu la r spor t s goi ng , h a s t a ke n a preemptive strike and announcing well in the radical dating of both the Nationals and major steps for 2019, moving the PGA from its advance that it has that weekend staked out.” the Worlds the situation will be exacerbated.