Dispatch from the Track: Monday, June 30

All photos by Todd Cooper. Click on any image to go to a full gallery.

8:03pm Women's 3000m steeplechase prelims. Running strong. I'm trying to live-blog it and not blow it. There's a strong pack of five in the front and only four get to advance.

8:04pm Two laps to go and this could come down to the wire..

8:06pm Barringer pushes into the lead. Woman with pink and blonde hair fades to 2nd...but still strong in final lap..

Pink-haired Anna Willard is in the lead.

No action from the 5th runner, yet. Slowly gains after the water pit... OOOOOOOHhhh shit..... but the woman in the green. The 5th runner doesn't make it. Too bad Ann Gaffigan. Jennifer Barringer wins it. Pink haired woman is 2nd. Her name is Anna Willard. Carrie Strickland is third. I'm thinking maybe all those people wearing "Go Carrie" T-shirts outside at the festival area were fans of her.

The foul-smelling sports reporter doesn't buy my theory, since there are two Carrie's in the race. But Carrie Strickland runs for Bowerman AC... pretty sure she's a local. And pretty sure the foul-smelling sport reporter in front of me is an asshole.

8:13pm Women's 800m final. Nicole Teter is hungry for it. They're running 12 girls in the final, which is damn near reckless. Teter was one of the women who fell in the pileup of the semis. They allowed all four women who fell into this final. Here we go...

8:15pm First lap is 56.7 seconds! And they're in a thick group... and it's Hazel Clark in 1:58.82, Alice Schmidt in 2.00.46 and Kemeisha Bennett in third, just beating Teter to the line. Teter in 2:01:30, Bennett in 2:01:20. All runners looked like they were just drained by the final 100m. Seriously good effort. The women don't wait til the end to sprint...they go out hard and hold on. Unlike the men...

UPDATE: Teter is on the Olympic team, not Bennett. Since Bennett didn't qualify with an Olympic A standard time, and Teter already has an A standard time, she goes. She goes.

8:19pm Women's javelin. Practice throws.

8:21pm Men's 800m final. We have Nick Symmonds and Andrew Wheating in this race. It'd be a miracle if both of them go to Beijing, so this is definitely going to be down to the wire. Both have a hard final kick. My money is on Robinson and Symmonds. But this is why the Trials are so exciting: anything can happen.

And Wheating just ran over to the southeast grandstands to get a little crowd roar action. He's gonna need it.

Now Nick runs over there. He doesn't get quite the same reception. I guess that's what you get for living in Springfield (like Prefontaine).

8:26pm Symmonds is in lane 1. Wheating in lane 3. When they announce Wheating the crowd is electric.
Wheating and Lopez Lomong (a Lost Boy of Sudan) are the underdogs.

8:28pm Holy Fuck. Wheating and Symmonds are going to Beijing. Plus Christian Smith by a nose. Literally. Smith fell flat on his face at the finish. How in the world?

Recap: Symmonds and Wheating held back the first lap and a half. Robinson looked solid. As did Lopez Lomong. Both were frontrunners. But the first lap and a half means nothing. It's all about who crosses the line and when. And Symmonds poured on the heat in the final 130 meters. His kick was enormous and a first place was assured of him. But then Wheating took longer to get into gear. He swung wide. But the crowd was enormous. Just literally apeshit Hayward-style. And his sprint got him in. The only remaining seat was 3rd, and I swear Robinson had this. It was a blur, and two runners face-planted on the finish line (Smith and Robinson). Apparently Smith had the faster-paced face-plant.

Lomong and Robinson kept shaking their heads, asking the officials if the scoreboard was real.

1:44:10 - Symmonds
1:45:03 - Wheating
1:45:47 - Smith

Nick Symmonds jumps the fence to get a hug from a spectator (his mom?).

8:52pm Women's 5000m prelims.
HEAT 1: Shalane Flanagan is the favorite. But locals Nicole Blood (UO) and Lauren Fleshman (lives in Eugene) are gunning to at least qualify.

74.7 first lap. Flesh and Flan out front, but it's still one large pack.
76.6 second lap. Still tight.
75.2 third lap. The only reason I can figure Flan is doubling is because the 5k is her main race. If she qualifies in the 5k, she'll drop the 10k at Beijing.
76.7 fourth lap. Still tight, if not tighter. Blood is hanging tough in the middle of the pack.
76.4 at fifth lap. A woman in green just burst into the lead. Things are going to get interesting now.
Seventh lap: Flan regains the lead. Still a tight pack. Woman in green is really going for it, tho... Flesh is in 4th.
Ninth lap: Flan is cutting loose. But Blood is still less than 3 seconds behind her. Woman in green is fading.. Blood is stuck behind her.
Three laps to go...

And Blood just stopped. She will not finish the race.

Two laps to go and the speed is increasing threefold.
Flan out front. Flesh in 3rd, closely behind. Flesh is getting spiked by Flan on the final lap...
This is going to be a sprint...
...Flesh moves up on Flan...
...others are surging...
...Flesh and Flan qualify.

9:26pm Javelin thrower Rachel Yurkovich (UO) just threw her way into 3rd place. Barring any better throws from other throwers, she will go to Beijing...we'll see. Her best throw is now 185 feet.

Patterson just announced as the winner of the women's javelin. I (think) that means Yurkovich is 3rd. But she won't go to Beijing because her 185 foot mark doesn't reach the Olympic A standard of 192 feet. Since 1st place finisher Kara Patterson didn't reach the A standard herself, the U.S. can only send those who have reached the A standard at some point in the past year. And those two are Kara Patterson and Kim Kreiner.

Standards are a good thing. You don't want to fly across the world just to get your ass whupped, right?

Nike's bulls on parade.

9:32pm They are previewing the Nike-made outfits on the track. Parading the athletes who have already qualified for the Olympics around the track, putting goofball Reese Hoffa in the front. I think they're actually playing some sort of U2 song as background victory song. The outfits look rather boring. Superman Navy blue with a few stripes of lighter colored blue. The Nike logo is almost as large as the USA insignia. It's one big commercial for Nike, and further proof these athletes can be made to act like clowns for peanuts.

9:40pm Men's 5000m final. I decided to put my laptop down and just watch this race. I still took notes, though:

• Vaughn bursts into an early lead, well ahead of the pack. He's either gutsy as hell or stupid or both.

• Seven minutes into the race and the last lap is 68.2 seconds.

• Five laps to go and Klamath Falls native Ian Dobson is in fifth moving to fourth.

• With four laps to go, Adam Goucher drops out. He just walks off the track and makes his way back to the athlete area.

• The final two laps are 58.8 and 58 flat. On the final stretch, five runners gun for the top three. Bernard Lagat easily breaks loose for a two-stride lead while Dobson inches his way into a neck-and-neck with Matt Tegenkamp.

• I find myself involuntarily shouting "C'mon Dobson! C'mon!" I ran against him back when he was running for Klamath Union High School and winning the 4A Cross Country Championships. It's not like I ever got close to him, time-wise, but still feel good knowing that someone who was running great in Oregon as a teen 10 years ago has now made it to the Olympics. We'll see if Galen Rupp (the other native Oregon distance runner) has it in him later this week in the 10k (Rupp pulled out of the 5k final).

Klamath Falls native Ian Dobson can't believe he just made the Olympic team.

Nike unveiled some smokin' jerseys for Tegenkamp and Lagat. Why can't THESE be the official USA Team outfits? They are so badasssss...