Carl Myerscough (GBR) (© Getty Images)
After two days of seemingly endless trials, the NCAA track championships exploded into action tonight (Friday 13 June) with 16 finals.
The biggest explosion came from the shot put ring, where the 2.09m/150 kg Carl Myerscough, an Englishman who competes for the University of Nebraska, came into the final put of the competition trailing Christian Cantwell of Missouri, 20.85 to Cantwell's 21.56. After Myerscough managed to produce a prodigious winning put of 21.92, he said, "I have no recollection of the throw whatsoever. I just remember walking into the circle and I remember seeing it land. I don't know how the heck it got there."
Myercough moves to 22nd on the all-time list, and more importantly in terms of the World Championships and Olympic Games, to sixth on the list of currently active shot putters.
Louisiana State University sprinters ran off with both 4x100 relays. The men won in a good 38.65. But the LSU women's team ran the second fastest time ever by a university foursome, 42.55, thanks to anchor woman Muna Lee's zooming from two metres back to overtake Texas' Aleah Williams and South Carolina's Aleen Bailey. An hour or so later, Bailey (JAM) returned the favour by edging Lee in the women's 100m final, 11.18 to 11.22. It was Lee's seventh high-intensity race in 48 hours -- and with only a -0.2 wind, the somewhat slower than expected time may indicate, as we sort of predicted, that the new NCAA format may not be favourable to doubling and tripling, especially for collegiate athletes, who tend to be 22 or under.
And it 's even harder to imagine that many university-age athletes are going to find it easy to make the U.S. team for the World Championships, which will be chosen from rhe top three of nexr week's USATF championships.
The 400-metreshurdling was good for both males and females. Dean Griffiths (JAM) beat defending champion Rickey Harris, 48.55 to 48.83, while the women's race was won by Sheena Johnson, who came from behind over the two final hurdles to beat Raasin McIntosh, 54.24 to 55.02.
The men's 100 was won by relatively unknown Mardy Scales in the relatively slow time of 10.25, which was helped by a aiding-but-legal zephyr of 2.0 m/s. Two of the pre-race favorites, DaBryan Blanton and Marquios Davis, were zapped by the one-false-start-and you're out NCAA rules.
From a world point of view, perhaps the most striking results outside of the men's shot put were not finals,, but the semi-finals of the men's 400 metres. Mitch Potter ran fastest, 44.94, but five others were at or under 45.25 or under. Now that should be a final and a half!
Full NCAA Results -
