2008 US Olympic Track and Field Trials, Eugene, Oregon Or, how I spent my summer vacation

by Ray Sibley

6/27/08 Day One

Olympic Marathon Trials, Day 1

I woke up early this morning to catch a mid-morning flight. I needed get to DIA so I can fly to Eugene to watch the US Olympic Track & field trials. I flew out of B-89 — I didn’t even know they had a gate B-89. I’ve never been way out here before; some of these planes have propellers.

Two kids at the gate looked familiar; they had to be runners.

My plane is a jet, thank god! A small one, two seats on each side of the isle, but at least no propellers. I was right – the two kids were Billy Nelson and Jenny Barringer. I saw them run and win the men’s and women’s Steeplechase at the Big 12 track championships in Boulder a few weeks ago. How cool is that! This is starting off well.

Got to Eugene and introduced myself while we were waiting to pick up our bags. Nice Kids. Hope they do well.

Track meet starts at 1 pm., plane arrives in Eugene a 2 pm. The most important thing first: Oregon Micro Brew. Judd, one of my running buddies who lives in Eugene picked me up at the airport. I tried a Triple Jump IPA while we are waiting.

We stopped by the River on the way in, another microbrewery, another good beer. We finally get to the college about 4 pm to check in. If you have never stayed at the dorms during an event like this I highly recommend it. Great price, great people, and three meals a day. We had dinner and walked over to the track about 5:50 pm.

Hayward field is only a couple hundred yards from the Dorms. The trials last 5 hours on short days and up to 10 hours on long days, so you need to pace yourself. I missed a few of the Heptathlon events and qualifying rounds for the women’s 100, but got there to see the first rounds of men’s pole vault and the quarterfinals in the men’s and women’s 800, the semifinal of the men’s 5000 and the women’s 10,000 final. All the important stuff.

Pole Vault: No upsets — all the favorites made it through.

800 Meters: 3 heats each men and women — that’s a lot of 800 meters. Exciting finishes by Nick Symmonds and Anderew Wheating, both won their respective heats by kicking the last 100 meters, both Oregon products and strong crowd support. The crowd exploded when they won. The biggest excitement in the women’s race was the high schooler, who made it to the next round.

5000 Men: This was a great race. All the favorites were there: Lagat, Rupp, Tegenkamp and a trio from Colorado, Adam Goucher, Brent Vaughn, and Stephen Pifer. All of the Colorado runners advanced to the finals. The crowd once more erupted when Rupp — an Oregon runner — won the second heat of the night with a sprint over the last 50 meters.

10,000 Women: The main event, the first final of the trials. Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher took the race out at a respectable pace, but not one that would break up the field, several runners jockeyed in and out of third place, but the field stayed tightly bunched for the first 4K. At that point Flanagan moved to the front and threw in several fast laps and by 5K there were only three, Flanagan, Goucher and Amy Yoder Begley. Very soon it was clear that these three women would be the first to make the Olympic team.

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