Day two of the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships concluded with mixed results for Minnesota athletes.
Goucher Wins 5000m Title... Duluth native Kara Goucher turned in another stellar performance by running away from the field to win a second consecutive USA Championship at 5,000 meters in a time of 15:20.94. Goucher, who is planning to run the marathon at the World Championships in Berlin, earned a spot on the U.S. team in 5000,with the win."I finally executed my plan," Goucher told USA told USA Track & Field after the race. "I got a lot of inspiration from my training partners who raced effortlessly yesterday.”
You can watch Goucher's race HERE.
Team USA Minnesota had a trio of athletes in the event. Emily Brown ran 16:07 for 13th place while Meghan Armstrong finished 16th in 16:42. 2004 Olympian Carrie Tollefson did not finish.
"[Carrie] has had a stress reaction in her foot since May and has been training totally on the underwater treadmill for a few weeks," Team USA Minnesota president Pat Goodwin told DtB. "She was hoping her foot would hold up during the race. She was, however, limping a bit during her warmup and after a mile in the race she knew she needed to drop out without risking further injury. Her foot was pretty sore after the race."
In semi-final heats of the women's 800 meters, Laura Hermanson kept the dream alive by running 2:02.44 to qualify for Sunday's final. Her collegiate rival, Heather Dorniden finished in 2:06 and did not advance.
In the women's triple jump final, Amanda Thieschafer leaped 44 feet, 9 inches to finish in sixth place. Her training partner, 2008 Olympian Shani Marks recorded only one legal jump of 43 feet, one and a half inches to finish in 11th.
St. Louis Park native Laishema Hampton finished in seventh place in the junior women's shot put with a throw of 47 feet, 7 and three quarters inches.
Former Gopher Karl Erickson threw 193 feet, 9 inches on his first attempt in the men's discus final, then struggled with fouls to finish in eighth place.
Complete results from the meet are available HERE.
There's video of all the action on the track HERE, thanks to Flotrack.
Photos by Becky Miller.
2 comments:
Charlie, I don't follow the field events that closely. So I'm wondering what's up with Shani Marks? Olympian to 11th in a year? Injured?
Chad - I don't have any inside info, but if you look at the results, Shani had a foul, jumped 43 ft, then had another foul. The 43 wasn't enough to get her into the final round, so she didn't get 3 more jumps to redeem herself. It may just be that her timing was off.
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