byLarry Eder
Ashton Eaton, 2011 USA Outdoors, photo by PhotoRun.net
Some tremendous performances on Sunday, strong crowd and even an American record were overshadowed by what is being termed a fiasco over the announcement, that there was no logo rules in effect in the US Indoor champs. RBR was told today that even presidents of involved footwear brands saw the note, watched the TV and were calling their representatives on the and wondering what was going on?
We seem to not be able to do anything but shoot ourselves in the foot over such last minute decisions. Perhaps it was considered by USATF as a way to control the athletes’ frustrations. Instead it has opened a hailstorm of concern from sponsors. Stay tuned.
Here is Elliott Denman’s comments on the meet for Day 2.
By ELLIOTT
DENMAN
ALBUQUERQUE,
N.M. – Naturally-naturally-naturally, Ashton Eaton was overshadowed
Sunday.
By the likes of
Trell Kimmons, Aries Merritt, Leo Manzano, Brad Walker and Reese Hoffa on the
men’s side of the concluding session of the USA Indoor Nationals, the
final trial for the USA team headed to the IAAF World Indoor Championships
in Istanbul, March 9-11.
And by such leading ladies as Chaunte
Howard Lowe, Sanya Richards-Ross,
Tianna Madison, Kristi Castlin, Jill Camarena-Williams and Jennifer
Simpson.
Before 2,480
witnesses, and a national TV audience (tape delay), Kimmons (6.45 60), Castlin
(7.84 60 hurdles) and Richards-Ross (50.71) all ran to 2012 world list-leading
triumphs. Madison (at 7.02) was a
world-leader, too, but merely matched her own 7.02 of two weeks
ago.
Lowe flew to an
American indoor record 6-7 ½ HJ; Walker elevated to a 19-2 ¾ PV, and bravely but
unsuccessfully attacked an AR 6 meters/ 19-8 ¼.
Camarena-Williams and Hoffa led the
“occupy” movement of the Convention Center shot put zone; unlike their outside
counterparts on Wall Street and beyond, they made believers of all in their
presence. First, she unloaded a 64-2 ¼ winner in round four of the women’s
event; then he delivered a golden 71-4 ½ bombshell in round five of the men’s
competition.
Team USA is loaded with shot talent. Left in the champions’
slipstream were the likes of Michelle Carter, Ryan Whiting, Christian Cantwell
and Adam Nelson.
The men’s 60 hurdles was a bizarre affair.
Dexter Faulk, who’d run a world-leading 7.40 in the Saturday prelims, carelessly
let himself get DQd out of the Sunday final. They let him run it anyway, but all he
got was an “FS” listing, for false start, in final results. So Merritt won it in
7.43.
The men’s 1,500 final
was the slow-paced but ultra-competitive racing highlight of the day. As
the final-lap bell rung, this one was a three-man
battle.
Galen Rupp made first
big move and stayed ahead until Matthew Centrowitz surged ahead around the final
bend. But it was Manzano who took
it all in 3:48.05, swinging wide to lane three and outkick young Centro
(3:48:15) and Rupp (3:48.44.)
After taking the
women’s 3000-meter title Saturday, Simpson roared back Sunday to claim the 1,500
in 4:15.04, thus emerging as meet’s only double
wnner.
And this brings us
back to Ashton Eaton.
Will Claye had
hoped to notch a Nationals double, too, after his sizzling 57-10 ¼ triple jump
win Saturday. He was guessed to be a long jump cinch Sunday,
too.
Right? No,
wrong.
Nothing in this sport
is ever determined by guesswork. And when Claye fouled four of his six attempts,
the handwriting was on the Convention Center wall.
Eaton, the Oregon
grad deca-star, took the lead with an opening-round 25-8; saw Claye jump ahead
with a round-two 26-3 ¾; then grabbed the lead to stay with his third-round PR
span of 26-5 ½.
With Claye fouling
out of rounds 4, 5 and 6, the suspense was over.
And Eaton was
installed – with even greater emphasis – as an emerging superstar of Team
USA, not just at Istanbul, but the London Olympic Games,
too.
Multi-event marvels
aren’t supposed to win individual events at Nationals. Accepted belief is that
they’re gifted in 10 different directions, but rarely gifted enough to win
any of them outright at this level. Jackie Joyner-Kersee continues to rank
as a multi-exception.
At 24, Eaton keeps
opening eyes, keeping on the upswing in all that he
does.
”Just where, which
events, are you improving the most?” he was
asked.
“Can’t tell you
that,” he responded.
“Because I’m
improving in all of them.”
At a tender two
dozen years old, he’s already the world record-holder in the seven-event event
heptathlon. It came with his 6,568 score in a meet at Tallinn, Estonia, 54 weeks
ago.
He’ll compete in the
invitation-only heptathlon at the Indoor Worlds in Istanbul, and look for him to
raise his own world “hep” record to the 6,700-something range in
Turkey.
The outdoor
“dec” closes with the 1, 500 meters, the indoor “hep” with the 1,000
meters.
These are the
events traditional multi-men detest. They often treat them with slo-mo
disdain.
Not
Eaton.
With a recent
1:52 clocking in the 800, he knows he can floor it in the event the others
usually fail.
While the rest
of the world continues to make advances on long-held American track and field
dominance, the decathlon looms as the London event where the USA can easily go
1-2-3.
There’s Trey Hardee,
28, the 2009 and 2011 world champion. There’s Bryan Clay, 32, the reigning
Olympic champion (and 2004 silver medalist) who only needs to stay healthy to
make the history books as the first Olympian ever to win three
deca-medals.
Neither Hardee or Clay
competed in Albuquerque. There’s a
fine line between working into super shape, and working out of the picture and
onto the injury list.
The world deca-record
of 9,026 points has been the property of the Czech Republic’s
remarkable Roman Seberle since 2001.
Will Eaton
reach even further into the 9,000s sometime this Olympic year? Will Hardee? Will
Clay?
Deca-fanatics can
only rub their hands in glee at such possibilities.
Eaton wasn’t
willing to play this numbers game in Albuquerque.
Two of his
favorite words are “stay
tuned.”
For full results on day 2, click here: USA Indoors, Day 2
