Photo by: Samuel Marshall/Eric Evans Photography
Gillespie Racing Toward Expectations
04/19/19 | Track and Field, @GoDucksMoseley
Sprinter Cravon Gillespie is off to a fast start this outdoor season, and that has him setting big goals for later in the summer.
Cravon Gillespie is running towards expectations, and doing so quickly.
Gillespie, the UO senior sprinter, opened his outdoor season in explosive fashion, running the 100 meters in 10.04 seconds, a time just barely wind aided (+2.2). Given that Gillespie ran 10.02 to cap his junior season at the NCAA Championships, his 2019 debut has him thinking big.
As in, as big as it gets.
"Definitely win (national titles) in the one (hundred) and two (hundred), and win a men's title," Gillespie said earlier this month.
On Saturday, Gillespie will take the next step in his outdoor season when he runs at the Mt. SAC Relays, on the track where he attended junior college before joining the Ducks. In that regard Gillespie will be back where he started his college career, but there's no doubt how far he's come in just a few short years.
UO head coach Robert Johnson coached Gillespie on the national Pan American Games junior team when it competed in Toronto in 2015. Johnson saw a raw but gifted sprinter, who might one day help the Ducks.
"He was talented way back then; he's been talented last year — you could start to see him scratch the surface," Johnson said. "And now after having him for over a year, and him kind of learning the system and what we do here, you can kind of see some of the breakout stuff that he's been doing."
Johnson said Gillespie's running mechanics have improved dramatically. Johnson and UO sprints coach Curtis Taylor worked particularly hard to hone Gillespie's acceleration at the start, and it showed when he finished fourth in the 60 meters at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships.
As Johnson put it, "the caterpillar is starting to turn into a butterfly."
Gillespie pointed out that he only arrived at Oregon in January 2018, and didn't have a fall season of training before beginning competition on the track last spring. Now he's feeling so fit, the 10.04 earlier this season at the SDSU Aztec Invitational isn't something on which Gillespie is hanging his hat.
"Towards the end of that race, I kind of broke down a little bit," he said. "So that could have been even faster."
Indeed, Gillespie wants to run in the 9.9-second range this season. And Johnson has no doubt he can get under 10 seconds, based on his speedy season debut.
Such public expressions of confidence, Johnson said, are further proof of Gillespie's development. In the past, he might have withheld his goals from all but his coaches and teammates.
But now, Gillespie is setting championship expectations for himself. And he doesn't mine sharing them.
"I tell him this all the time, there's still a lot of growing for him to do," Johnson said. "But compared to three, four years ago, he's leaps and bounds better. … We've seen the maturation of Cravon, and him growing up."
Gillespie, the UO senior sprinter, opened his outdoor season in explosive fashion, running the 100 meters in 10.04 seconds, a time just barely wind aided (+2.2). Given that Gillespie ran 10.02 to cap his junior season at the NCAA Championships, his 2019 debut has him thinking big.
As in, as big as it gets.
"Definitely win (national titles) in the one (hundred) and two (hundred), and win a men's title," Gillespie said earlier this month.
On Saturday, Gillespie will take the next step in his outdoor season when he runs at the Mt. SAC Relays, on the track where he attended junior college before joining the Ducks. In that regard Gillespie will be back where he started his college career, but there's no doubt how far he's come in just a few short years.
UO head coach Robert Johnson coached Gillespie on the national Pan American Games junior team when it competed in Toronto in 2015. Johnson saw a raw but gifted sprinter, who might one day help the Ducks.
"He was talented way back then; he's been talented last year — you could start to see him scratch the surface," Johnson said. "And now after having him for over a year, and him kind of learning the system and what we do here, you can kind of see some of the breakout stuff that he's been doing."
Johnson said Gillespie's running mechanics have improved dramatically. Johnson and UO sprints coach Curtis Taylor worked particularly hard to hone Gillespie's acceleration at the start, and it showed when he finished fourth in the 60 meters at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships.
As Johnson put it, "the caterpillar is starting to turn into a butterfly."
Gillespie pointed out that he only arrived at Oregon in January 2018, and didn't have a fall season of training before beginning competition on the track last spring. Now he's feeling so fit, the 10.04 earlier this season at the SDSU Aztec Invitational isn't something on which Gillespie is hanging his hat.
"Towards the end of that race, I kind of broke down a little bit," he said. "So that could have been even faster."
Indeed, Gillespie wants to run in the 9.9-second range this season. And Johnson has no doubt he can get under 10 seconds, based on his speedy season debut.
Such public expressions of confidence, Johnson said, are further proof of Gillespie's development. In the past, he might have withheld his goals from all but his coaches and teammates.
But now, Gillespie is setting championship expectations for himself. And he doesn't mine sharing them.
"I tell him this all the time, there's still a lot of growing for him to do," Johnson said. "But compared to three, four years ago, he's leaps and bounds better. … We've seen the maturation of Cravon, and him growing up."
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