Fresh off of a weekend of very solid tune-up races, Alan Webb told reporters that he has decided to run the Wanamaker Mile at Friday night's Millrose Games. It will be the first time that Webb, an Olympian at 1500m, will run on the unusual 11 laps-to-the-mile track at Madison Square Garden.
"I'm really excited about it," said Webb speaking from his home in Reston, Va. on a conference call with the weekly New York Track Writers luncheon. "It's always been on the short list of meets I wanted to run."
Webb, 22, will face off against Olympic silver medallist Bernard Lagat of Kenya along with his compatriot, Laban Rotich. Both Lagat and Rotich have won the Wanamaker Mile twice. Other entries include Rob Myers, the reigning U.S. indoor 1500m champion, and Welshman James Thie.
"It's one of the strongest, if not the strongest (Wanamaker fields) in history," said USA Track & Field CEO, Craig Masback, who also participated in the conference call.
Webb, along with manager Ray Flynn and coach Scott Raczko, made the decision to enter the Millrose Games only after Webb had run two successful tune-up races over the weekend at Boston University. Last Friday night he finished second to Irishman Mark Carroll in a 3000m race in 7:47.19, and came back the next afternoon to run 3:59.80 for the mile. He bypassed the Reebok Boston Indoor Games where most of the top athletes were competing.
"I wanted to have a tune-up race," explained Webb who said that he wanted to be sure of his fitness prior to taking on top-flight competitors like Lagat. "I'm pretty fit right now. I just wanted to see where I was."
An American has not won the Wanamaker Mile since 1984 when Steve Scott got the victory on the old Garden track which was made of wood. The current track uses the standard Mondo surface mounted on a metal frame, but because of the tight space in the Garden, the track is both short and severly banked, measuring only 145.5m per lap. That doesn't worry Webb.
"I've never run on anything shorter than a 200m track," said Webb sounding just a little tentative. But then he said, "It's still a mile. I'm pretty familiar with that distance."
David Monti (Race Results Weekly) for the IAAF