• ALL THE BEST IN RUNNING, JUMPING & THROWING • FEBRUARY 2021 www.trackandfieldnews.com Indoor World Records For Ryan Crouser & Hugues Fabrice Zango Grant Holloway Ties His American Record New Meets To Pump New Life Into The U.S. Calendar? T&FN Interview: Marathoner Sara Hall Special Focus: U.S. Women’s Pole Vault Scene Ryan Special Focus: Crouser U.S. Men’s 800 Scene Launches Shot World Record Track & Field News February 2021 — 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Volume 74, No. 2 February 2021 From The Editor — T&FN’s Publication Schedule Returns To Normal . 4 Will New Meets Pump New Life Into The U .S . Calendar? . 5 Records Highlight Debut Of The American Track League . 7 Ryan Crouser Crushes World Shot Put Record . 8 Focus On The U .S . Men’s 800 Scene . 9 Donavan Brazier Looking For Big Numbers Beyond The 800 . 11 Bryce Hoppel Is A Racer Who’s Dying To Race . 13 Isaiah Harris Is Swimming With The Big Fish . 14 Devin Dixon Definitely Isn’t A Follower . 15 Focus On The U .S . Women’s Pole Vault Scene . 16 Sandi Morris Staying Busy During Trying Times . 18 A Still-Fit Jenn Suhr Going Strong At 39 . 20 Katie Nageotte Bouncing Back From COVID Hit . 22 Vaulter Olivia Gruver Is Packing Extra Motivation . 23 For Emily Grove, Getting Her Q Was A Big Deal . 24 International Digest — World Record For Zango . 25 Collegiate Digest — A Recordbreaking Start To Season . 26 Collegiate Recordsetter KC Lightfoot Aiming At 6-Meter Barrier . 27 Virginia Showcase Highlights High School Scene . 28 2021 NCAA Men’s Top 10 Outdoor Eligibles . 29 2021 NCAA Women’s Top 10 Outdoor Eligibles . 32 2021 High School Boys Top 10 Eligibles . 35 2021 High School Girls Top 10 Eligibles . 37 How Will The Revamped 2021 DL Work? . 39 How Do You Make It To The Olympics? . 40 T&FN Interview — Sara Hall . 41 Teen Sprint Sensation Erriyon Knighton Goes Pro . 46 ON YOUR MARKS . 47 LANDMARKS . 49 STATUS QUO . 50 LAST LAP . 51 FOR THE RECORD . 54 CALENDAR . 55 • cover photo of Ryan Crouser by Shawn Price • Track & Field News February 2021 — 3 FROM THE EDITOR Track & Field News The Bible Of The Sport Since 1948 — T&FN’s Publication Founded by Bert & Cordner Nelson E. GARRY HILL — Editor Schedule Returns JANET VITU — Publisher To Normal EDITORIAL STAFF Sieg Lindstrom . Managing Editor Jeff Hollobaugh . Associate Editor ON BEHALF OF the whole T&FN crew, I’d like to thank all you loyal subscribers who hung with us through the annus horribilis that was 2020 . BUSINESS STAFF You surely noticed that with so little hard news to report during the aborted “Olympic Year” we double-monthed the naming of the ’20 issues from March/April through November/December . Ed Fox . Publisher Emeritus As a result, the year had only 7 editions instead of 12, spread out across the calendar accordingly . Wallace Dere . Office Manager What was behind this decision? With “news” being such an important part of our name, we Teresa Tam . Art Director wanted to be sure you got what you signed up for . Accordingly, you’ll still get — to steal a line from the New York Times — all the news that’s fit to print. You’ll just get it farther down the road. WORLD RANKINGS COMPILERS And in case you’re worried that you might get cheated on your investment with us, I hasten to clarify that for every doubled issue you received your subscription was extended by a month . Jonathan Berenbom, Richard Hymans, Dave John- We’re actually very proud of our 2020 content . Writing feature material, good feature material, son, Nejat Kök, R.L. Quercetani (Emeritus) is immensely harder than the news, but the expanded timeframe allowed us to dive into more long- form journalism. Even with the reduced number of issues published, the overall production of deeper SENIOR EDITORS stories was our highest ever, and we hope you enjoyed it. Bob Bowman (Walking), Roy Conrad (Special A special tip of the editor’s proverbial hat to Managing Editor Sieg Lindstrom and Associate Projects), Bob Hersh (Eastern), Mike Kennedy Editor Jeff Hollobaugh for doing such yeoman work in crafting the many fine profiles and interviews (HS Girls), Glen McMicken (Lists), Walt Murphy which graced our pages . I’m sure you’ll agree that their work was over-the-top exemplary, particu- (Relays), Jim Rorick (Stats), Jack Shepard (HS Boys) larly in such trying times . Their deep analyses of the U .S . scene in many events have made for no end of fabulous reading . U.S. CORRESPONDENTS In case you missed any of them, since the January ’20 edition was published we have produced John Auka, Bob Bettwy, Bret Bloomquist, Bill deep looks at 13 events: men’s 100, 800, 5000, 110H, PV, TJ & SP; women’s 400, 800, 1500, 100H, PV, LJ . Buchalter, Tom Casacky, Pete Cava, Gene Cherry, And now we’re back to having single-named issues for the first two editions of ’21, with every Keith Conning, Cheryl Davis, Elliott Denman, expectation that we’ll continue that way through the Olympic year . Peter Diamond, Charles Fleishman, John Gillespie, Look for us not only to be on top of all the news, but also to continue to explore more long-form Becca Gillespy-Peter, Rich Gonzalez, Ed Gordon, stories on our sport’s greatest stars . Plus more of our always-entertaining T&FN Interviews, which Ed Grant, George Grenier, Ben Hall, Sean Hartnett, in the last year have featured Rai Benjamin, Emma Coburn, Sara Hall, Grant Holloway, Michael Mike Hubbard, Dave Hunter, Tom Jennings, Roger Norman, Keturah Orji & Kara Winger. Jennings, Tom Jordan, Kim Koffman, Don Kopriva, Dan Lilot, Paul Merca, Larry Newman, Lee Nichols, Kudos To U.S. Meet Promoters Jack Pfeifer, Shawn Price, Harv Rentschler, Kirk Of all the stories we have published in the last year, arguably the most important of them is the Reynolds, Michael J . Roth, Brian Russell, Rich Sands, one that follows this column, regarding some enterprising meet promoters taking things into their Kevin Saylors, Charles Shaffer, Jim Spier, Jesse own hands in providing more domestic competitive opportunities for the nation’s pros . Squire, Don Steffens, Larry Story, Paul Swangard, There’s a banding-together of a mix of meets old and new for a 7-meet outdoor circuit and the Carol R . Swenson, Gary Trigueiro, Jules Trigueiro, creation of a new 4-meet indoor circuit . Steve Vaitones, Howard Willman, David Woods As I write this, we’re on the cusp of meet No . 2 in Paul Doyle’s indoor creation, the American Track League, and USATF has chimed in with an announcement that it will “provide resources” for INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS the last three meets of the series . Steven Downes, Matti Hannus, Ian Hodge, Jonas That’s a great bit of news, but as our Last Lap item (“A Little Late To The Dance?”) on this devel- Hedman, Mike Hurst, Mirko Jalava, Paul Jenes, opment said, “While we are hesitant to be critical of any levels of support, we have to ask where the Alfons Juck, A . Lennart Julin, Duncan Mackay, federation has been the last year as this nasty crisis has played out.” Peter Matthews, Phil Minshull, K. Ken Nakamu- Expanded definition of “crisis”: in a health-of-the-sport frame of reference, there has been a ra, Bob Ramsak, Sergey Tikhonov, Chris Turner, crisis in play regards a dearth of competitive opportunities in the domestic sport for many years, Mel Watman not just since C19 arrived. Spending other peoples’ money is quite easy to do, but it certainly seems to me that the 20th-cen- PHOTOGRAPHERS tury (or is it 19th?) business model no longer works. The national federation, while it has sponsored Claus Andersen, Errol Anderson, Greg Armstrong, some good initiatives in recent years, needs to get even more into the meet-promotion business, top John Burke, Gladys Chai, Rich Clarkson, Giancarlo to bottom. Colombo, Tony Duffy, Don Gosney, Jeff Jacobsen, Doyle shouldn’t have to be pitching his ATL series to ESPN on his own . The Pro Series meets Anthony R . Jones, Kirby Lee, Bill Leung, Jiro shouldn’t be out looking for streaming packages on their own . Mochizuki, Kevin Morris, David Peterson, Victor USATF — here I go spending Indy’s money — should have a specialized department that does Sailer, Mike Scott, Mark Shearman, Kim Spir, nothing but work on creating/maintaining a viable circuit of meets . Cheryl Treworgy Kicking in some cold, hard cash would never be a bad thing, of course, but I’m speaking of providing a concerted effort to market the high end of the sport as a whole, with all the attendant Track & Field News was published continually benefits that come from banding together. as a print magazine since its inception in 1948 Finding national-level sponsors as well as helping meet promoters find backers at the local level. through the December 2017 issue . 2018 issues Ensuring that the product finds its way to the airwaves in as many ways as are possible. (January through December) were produced in The U .S . still produces more world-class performers than any other nation, but they increasingly digital only format . find themselves in the all-dressed-up-but-no-place-to-go category. That’s just not acceptable. Track & Field News February 2021 — 4 Will New Meets Pump New Life Into The U.S. Calendar? JEFF CORCORAN Ryan Crouser was an integral part of Drake’s Blue oval pop-up meet last summer and keyed an explosive start to the new ATL indoor series. by Jeff Hollobaugh can we take those and really move it to the next ups recently, but in the regular schedule of a level for the sport? We have to have matchups, normal year, there’s really not any professional we have to have continuity .