The AT&T USATF Indoor Championships are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday in Boston, but a winter storm is making things rough for everyone. USATF is making schedule changes on Saturday to account for the fact that athletes are having a tough time getting to Boston.Events involving Minnesotans are scheduled for Saturday night, so it shouldn't be a big issue. The women's 3K featuring Team USA Minnesota's Katie McGregor is given a 7:25 p.m. starting time. The women's 1,500 with Jenelle Deatherage is set to go off at 7:55 p.m. McGregor was third in the 3K in 2006. Her personal best is 8:59.64. Deatherage has a win and a runner-up finish already this season in the mile. She set a personal best last weekend at the Tyson Invitational and will be facing the woman who defeated her there, Christin Wurth-Thomas in Boston.
Kara Goucher will not be running in Boston. After a sub-par sixth place finish in Birmingham last weekend, Goucher said in an e-mail yesterday that she was feeling better, but had decided against making the trip to Boston. "I have started to feel a little better and actually had a decent workout yesterday," she said, "There will be plenty of 1500m races this spring where I can work on waiting until the end and then unleashing my kick! Today is the first day of my two week break, after this training will be very serious and LONG, so I am trying to enjoy this as much as possible. I am eating frosted flakes as I write this." Kara and husband, Adam, will take this time to visit family before they have to get back into hard training for the outdoor season.
In the pole vault, Tye Harvey, 2001 World Indoor silver medalist and 1998 grad of the University of Minnesota, is in the competition scheduled for 5 p.m. Saturday. Harvey was the top ranked high school pole vaulter in the US in 1993 with a height of 17' 1" at Sonora HS in California. He came back from a broken wrist sustained in an auto accident in 1997 to take second in the US Indoor championships in 2000. He was also second in US Indoor Nationals in 2001 before taking the same spot in the World meet. He's remembered for his battles with Laurence Johnson, who won the gold at the 2001 World meet and a silver medal in the 2000 Olympics. Harvey has the sixth best height among those entered in this year's competition.
University of Minnesota grad Shani Marks, a two-time indoor and outdoor champ in the triple jump, will be attempting to add a third indoor title.
A side note here on the late posting of these items today. For some unexplained reason--computer glitch, site problems at Google--I couldn't get into the site until now to put up new posts. So while weather played havoc with the schedule in Boston, cyberspace disturbances did the same here. Apologies for the problems.
The USATF meet will be on ESPN2 on Sunday, scheduled air time is from 5 to 7 p.m.
Also, who else remembers Tye Harvey's career at the U of M? He was a multiple-time all-american pole vaulter, with a best finish of 2nd at NCAAs. Since then he's been one of the best in the US for almost 10 years, and has a silver medal from the 2001 indoor world championships. He's in the pole vault on Saturday afternoon.
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