EUGENE - Oregon associate athletic director/director of track and field Vin Lananna and the first-year Duck coaching staff eagerly look forward to a new distance carnival format in Friday evening's Oregon Invitational.
An elite collegiate women's javelin field featuring several of the nation's top collegians kicks off the evening. An hour later, a three-hour window will showcase many of the world's top distance runners from 7:45 pm - 10:45 pm.
Many of America's most decorated collegiate and post-collegiate distance runners, including Olympians Dathan Ritzenhein, Jonathon Riley and Marla Runyan will compete in the 'A' sections of the 1,500m, 3,000m steeplechase, 5,000m and 10,000m.
Other World Championships qualifiers to keep an eye out for are post-collegians Tom Chorny (steeplechase), Carrie Messner (steeplechase) and Rosemary Ryan (5,000m).
A link to a meet schedule is included to the right in the ARTICLE LINKS box, along with links to tentative entries and heat sheets.
Single-day tickets can be bought at the Bowerman Building starting at 4:30 p.m. Friday night. Another 'High Performance' session follows Saturday afternoon for the remaining running and field events that lasts from 2-5:30 p.m.
A Saturday morning session for several 'B' sections is free to the public and runs from approximately 10 a.m. - Noon.
Included below are short event previews of Friday evening's top distance races.
Featured Events
6:10 p.m. - Women’s Javelin ? Oregon’s heralded javelin corps is one of the nation's best and features a pair of NCAA veterans in both the javelin and hammer. Roslyn Lundeen and Elisa Reynoso are both double All-Americans in the javelin, and freshman Rachel Yurkovich is on the fast track to an NCAA invite of her own. The returning U.S. junior and Pan-Am junior champion upped her best in her collegiate debut in the Oregon Preview (179-10) to move to second all-time for UO, and rewrote her former best of 176-5 from '05 - a national high school record that came at Hayward Field last April. Frosh teammate and fellow prep All-American Ashley McCrea ranked second on the U.S. high school list last season (158-6) and was also an Oregon state champion in the 3A ranks for North Bend High School. Eastern Washington senior Stephanie Ulmer ranks 15th nationally among collegians in ’06 with her season best (165-8), and junior teammate Jordan Baughan stands 25th nationally (156-11). Washington’s Tiffany Zahn is a three-time Pac-10 top-five finisher and has thrown 153-5 this season.
7:30 p.m. - Men’s 1,500 meters ? A deep mix of international talent will toe the starting line and will likely pull several potential collegiate All-Americans to fast times. Nike has several Kenyans entered in the field, including Cornelius Chirchir who ran 3:30.24 for a world junior record in 2002. Bernard Kiptum ran a 3:34.03 personal best last September, while Justus Koech steps up to the metric mile after he ran 1:44.16 in the 800m in 2003. Bryan Lindsay of New Balance took second in the NCAA 1,500m final (3:38.31) last year for BYU Colorado’s Stephen Pifer took fifth indoors in the NCAA mile after he broke 4:00 in February (3:59.55), and Oregon’s Michael McGrath went sub-4:00 indoors in ’06 (3:59.25). An Australian contingent of post-collegians will also be on hand that are entered with sub-3:42.00 marks.
7:50 p.m. - Women’s 1,500 meters ? Former Michigan All-American Lindsey Gallo took fifth in 2005 in both the NCAA Championships and USA Championships, and posted a breakthrough clocking in the latter meet (4:08.60). She ended the year ranked tops among Americans with her 4:05.75 clocking last summer in Rieti and moved to 20th on the U.S. all-time list. As a junior she also placed fourth in the 2004 NCAA 1,500m and owned a then-personal best of 4:09.94.
8:10 p.m. ? Men’s 3,000-meter Steeplechase ? New Eugene resident and Eugene Running Club entrant Tom Chorny won the U.S. title at Hayward Field in 2001 to earn a World Championships invitation, and enjoyed an 8:22.16 personal best that season. Another former Indiana University teammate and roommate Tom Brooks clocked 8:43.08 last year, along with 1,500 and mile bests of 3:41.47 and 4:00.55, respectively. BYU has emerged as one of the nation’s top steeplechase units, and senior Josh McAdams leads the early season collegiate list with his season and personal best (8:38.47) from the Stanford Invitational three weeks ago. Sophomore teammate Chandler Goodwin also ran 8:52.38 at Palo Alto and ranks 10th among collegians this season, just behind Central Michigan’s Matt Loiselle (eighth nationally, 8:48.15). Duck redshirt freshman Christopher Winter is a two-time Junior World Championships qualifier in the steeple for Canada and took third in the 2,000-meter steeple in 2004. The North Vancouver, B.C., native owns a best of 8:54.94 from the summer of 2004 ? slightly faster than his 2005 season best of 8:54.99 from the Canadian Junior Championships last July in Montreal. Two weeks ago, he ran a season best of 9:00.95 in the Pepsi Team Invitational at home that ranks second in the conference.
8:25 p.m. - Women’s 3,000-meter Steeplechase ? Carrie Messner of Asics took third in the 2005 USA Championships (9:41.37) and was less than two seconds shy of the win. The former Colorado All-American followed with her World Championships debut last summer in Helsinki, Finland (9:39.68) ? America’s fastest time over the barriers in ’06 and a time that moved her to third all-time in U.S. history
8:40 p.m. - Women’s 5,000 meters ? Rosemary Ryan of the Greater Boston Running Club represented Ireland in the 2000 Olympics in the 5,000m and ran her personal best (15:17.43) that summer in the Heusden meet in Belgium. The former Boston University All-American has also run the world cross country championships seven times since 1999 with a pair of top-30 short course finishes (19th in ’02, 28th in ’00) and five top-50 long course efforts (including 20th in ’00).
9:00 p.m. - Men’s 5,000 meters ? Nike’s Dathan Ritzenhein has been on the verge of greatness ever since high school. As a prep senior for Rockford High School in Rockford, Mich., he ran 13:44.70 in the USA Championships in Eugene in 2001, and then improved to 13:27.77 as a true freshman at Colorado. As a sophomore he sped to 27:38.50 in the 10,000m in ’03 ? a time that ranks him 10th all-time on the U.S. list and helped earn a spot in the 2004 Olympics (although he was forced to drop out of the Athens race because of an injury). Last May he won the Oregon Twilight 5,000m in Eugene in a meet record (13:22.23). Another 2004 Olympian, Jonathon Riley, won the NCAA 5,000m title as a junior for Stanford at Hayward Field in 2001. Since then he has finished top-four in the USA 5K in 2003 (fourth) and ’04 (second), and his best of 13:21.11 dates back to 2004.
Also watch for a flock of young distance runners who will be challenging for Olympic invites of their own in upcoming years including post-collegians Matt Tegenkamp ? a multiple All-American for Wisconsin with a best of 13:25.36 from ’05, the Nike Farm Team’s Chris Estwanik (ninth in the U.S. 1,500m the past two seasons), and UO’s former three-time 10,000m All-American Jason Hartmann. Among current collegians, Wisconsin junior Chris Solinsky has won the past two NCAA indoor 3,000-meter crowns, and he ran a 5K personal best last year in the USA Championships (10th, 13:37.55). Other All-Americans in the field include Notre Dame junior and Canadian Kurt Benninger and Wisconsin sophomore Matt Withrow who ran 13:33.05 and 13:35.32, respectively, in ’05.
9:35 p.m. - Men’s 10,000 meters ? Arizona’s defending NCAA champion Robert Cheseret will take aim at his personal best of 28:20.11 that won the 2005 collegiate crown over Oregon’s Galen Rupp (who is entered in Saturday afternoon’s Bill McChesney Jr. Memorial Mile). Wisconsin’s Simon Bairu is the two-time defending NCAA cross country champion and a world harrier champs veteran for Canada. The 2005 NCAA cross country team champion Badgers have five entries in the field that will take aim at the NCAA automatic mark of 29:00.00 along with other collegians from Central Michigan, Minnesota, Notre Dame and Wyoming.
10:10 p.m. - Women’s 10,000 meters ? After a year away from competitive running because of childbirth, Marla Runyan will race the 25-lap contest in front of her hometown friends and family. The Santa Maria, Calif., native made the Olympic team in 2004 thanks to a runner-up Olympic Trials finish in the 5,000m ? after she had won three straight U.S. 5K titles from 2001-03. Her 10,000m best dates back to 2004 (32:39.46) ? a time that’s just shy of the all-time U.S. top-50 list ? and she stands fifth all-time in the U.S. in the 5K with her best of 14:59.20 from 2004. Kara Goucher of the Nike Oregon Project will make her 10K debut and is on the comeback road after injuries slowed her initial post-collegiate training. Last year she ran season bests of 4:12.31 in the 1,500m, and15:17.55 in the 5,000m. The latter time improved on the former NCAA champion’s prior personal best of 15:28.8 from 2000. Several collegians will chase after the NCAA qualifying standards of 33:55.00 (automatic) and 35:00.00 (provisional).
