Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Season openers

So, the bulk of the posting on this blog lately has been on the other pages!  See the side bar to check out "Team Member Bios" and our "2011 Meet Schedule."  The meet schedule still has some updates coming its way, and our Paralympic athletes' bios are next on the list of pages to upload! 

Some of our athletes opened up in competition this past weekend.  We had a few people running and jumping at San Diego State.  Crystal Manning won the long jump with 6.31m (20'8.5").  Rob Brown opened his first season as an Olympic Training Center athlete with an appearance in the 400m dash.

Britney Henry won the hammer throw competition at the Oregon Preview in Eugene, Oregon.  She broke her own meet record from a year ago with a 66.67m toss. 

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

USATF National Indoor Championships

Saturday and Sunday, February 26th and 27th in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 7 of our athletes placed at the 2011 USA Indoor National Track and Field Championships
Overall, the weekend was quite successful!
Crystal Manning earned fourth place in the women's triple jump with a distance of 13.30m, or 43'7.25".  Only 36 centimeters separated Crystal from the winner.  This indoor national championship performance lifted her 10 spots from her 2010 USA Outdoor National Championships placing.


A pair of silver medals went to Jamie Nieto and Becky Christensen in the men's and women's high jumps, respectively.  Jamie jumped 2.25m, or 7'4.25", while Becky cleared 1.83m, or 6'0".  Becky's height and placing increased from last year's outdoor meet, as did Jamie's!



JaRod Tobler leapt 7.64m, or 25'0.75", to get second place in the men's long jumpHe moved up 6 places from the outdoor championship meet in 2010.


In the women's pole vault, Becky Holliday earned second place and Melinda Owen got third, both with clearances of 4.55m, or 14'11".  Becky's silver is her second consecutive, as she cleared a personal best 4.60m (15'1") at the 2010 outdoor meet to become the runner-up.  Melinda moves up 2 spots from outdoors last year and matches her best indoor finish (also third in 2009) with this personal record height.



The final Chula Vista Track and Field performance of the meet came from Yvette Lewis, whose 8.03-second 60 meter hurdle race was good for third place.  Yvette's strong return to competition this season is welcome, as much of last year was spent nursing a stubborn ankle injury.


Photos courtesy of exposay.com, PhotoRun, Michael Scott, thecrimson.com, and zimbio.com.  Video links thanks to runnerspace.com, and information on results links provided by USATF.org.