Dispatch from the Track: Friday, July 4

7:20pm Bianca Knight wins her 200m heat in 22 seconds and
walks off the track, looking nonplussed. In fact, she doesn't even appear to be
breathing … until someone shouts "All right Bianca!" and she looks up
briefly to show that yes, she is in fact a human being.

7:30pm Women's high jump final. I'm standing on the stairway
landing near the finish line. I'm surrounded by high jump coaches. Someone says
there will be a "changing of the guard" tonight, that a lot of the
women in the final are young 'uns. They announce the competitors and I'm drawn
to Adriane Stone because she's wearing a pink hoodie and gets all happy when
the announcer says she's the only one to PR in the qualifying rounds. My bets
are on her.

7:36pm Two scratch in the women's 200m heat, meaning all
four sprinters will automatically advance. I revise my previous concern that
running these heats even if all will advance is pointless. Now I believe it's
all just a test to see who runs consistently superior. While the Trials are a
test of the will, the Olympics are a triumph of the will. (For those who didn't
get my joke there, read this and this.)

7:36pm A high jump coach is doing a dance and yelling across
the track to his athlete: "You gotta go up, and then over!"

7:38pm Stone, (aka pink hoodie) just cleared opening height.

7:39pm The Oregon Duck mascot wanders onto the field and
generally acts like its tripping on psychedelic mushrooms. Eventually the duck
is escorted off the field.

7:42pm The first high jumper is eliminated in the
competition (I think it was Amber Kaufman?). Her coach says she "sat
around too much" before the competition and wasn't properly warmed up.
This is the first in a long list of excuses these coaches tell each other once
their jumpers are eliminated, one by one.

7:51pm So the high jump coach has to pantomime his (and they
are all males coaching surrounding me) criticism of the jumpers from a
distance, using bizarre hand waves and arm dips. When a coach wants to tell his
athlete to get her knee up, he first shouts "Get your knee up!" The
athlete, looking befuddled, needs further help. The coach lifts his own knee
high up in the air, points at it, then point up in the sky. The jumper nods,
claps her hands then slaps her thighs a few times. For a better analogy: Think
a third base coach in a game of baseball, only with the gutturals of a deaf and
mute.

7:55pm What appears to be a U.S. Army helicopter is circling
low over Hayward Field. A few minutes before this, actual U.S. Army servicemen
were brought trackside. Heightened security for the Fourth of July? Cops can't
tell fireworks from actual bombs?

8pm Men's 1500m semis.

HEAT 1: Alan Webb and Bernard Lagat in a fast heat (but
slower than the next one). It turns into a sprint and UO's Andrew Acosta (who
must've appealed his fall in the qualifying rounds and got a pass into the
semis) comes close to making the top six and qualifying for the finals, but
falls just a bit short.

HEAT 2: Kyle King goes out hard and fast, driving the pace
to a 1:59 for the first two laps, but King will eventually fade to almost last.
This heat is faster than the first, with winner Gabe Jennings clocking 3:40
flat.

8:20pm Six remain in the women's high jump. Stone (aka pink
hoodie) is on her 3rd and final attempt. The closeup of her face on the video
screen makes me think she's thinking of happy thoughts before her jump. The
audience does a drumroll clap but she misses. Still, she's ecstatic and so
very, very happy.

8:23pm Some high jumpers are needy, some not so much.
Deirdre Mullen needs a chat with her coach (using the crazy dance) after nearly
every jump. Most of the time, Mullen's coach just tells her that she looks
"perfect," but that she just needs to "hit it high." He's
using good tactics as a coach, but I wonder if Mullen (who is getting her
master's in counseling psychology) is on to his tactics. Sheena Gordon just
walks back to her chair after each jump, hit or miss.

8:26pm Women's 1500m semifinals.

HEAT 1: Mary Jayne Reeves dives at the finish (it seems that
more and more people are diving at the line, thanks to Christian Smith). But
Reeves doesn't qualify and she's close to tears just off the track.

HEAT 2: With her toned, but not sculpted, body and her three
foot long blond ponytail (which nearly engulfs her five foot frame), high
school runner Jordan Hasay doesn't look like the typical champion middle
distance runner. Nevertheless, there she is in the final 200m of the prelims,
blazing by the other runners in a homestretch kick that's all but expected of
the underdogs here at Hayward during the Trials. Her long blond hair (oh please
don't chop it off when you go to college, Jordan!) flailing in the breeze,
Hasay cruises into fifth in a new high school record of 4:14.50. (Christine
Babcock, who set the old AR just a few weeks ago, couldn't repeat her performance
and had to watch her fleeting record shattered while she painfully kicked down
the homestretch in 4:20:00.

While Hasay was flanked by all the cameras, the west
grandstands started a chant: "Come to Oregon! Come to Oregon! …"
while everyone smiled politely. Hasay, a Californian, would fit in well in
Eugene.

8:45pm I'm standing next to Deirdre Mullen's coach. She
skips to the next height because she doesn't have the Olympic A standard. She
needs to clear a lifetime best in order to take third place and go to Beijing.
"Hit it high!" her coach say, who backs away from the fence before
each of Mullen's jumps (in case she clears the bar and he has to shit bricks).

8:55pm Women's 5000m final. Tight six pack in the lead …
Shalane Flanagan letting Ariana Lambie lead for the first half of race. Then
it's Kara Goucher, Lauren Fleshman and Jen Rhines.

They run 9:12 for the first 3000 metes. Lambie looks tired,
doing all that leading and such. Only three will drink from the Olympic cup in
this six pack.

Flan, Rhines and Gouch break out in a 71.2 lap. Flesh and
Slattery don't pick up the pace and fade behind. One of the last laps goes by
in 67 seconds, but even so: This is a slow-ass 5k final. Goucher strides into
first in 15:01. Fleshman in 5th in 15:23.

9:10pm Two meatheads in the press seating are going berserk
over Goucher's first place finish. They yell things like (and I quote):
"Fuck yeah!" and give each other high fives. One has a backward hat,
one wears a collared shirt and both wear cargo shorts and brand new Nike shoes.

9:18pm Ian Stewart, the Brit who kicked past Prefontaine in
the Munich Olympics to rob him of a bronze medal, comes out to the infield and
says it's "perfect weather" for a race and that he "thinks
you're in for a treat tonight," in regards to the men's 10k field. We are
all reminded, once again, of the entertainment value of track and
field.

9:20pm Men's 10,000m final. Galen Rupp is wearing my lucky
number (#11) so my bet is that he qualifies. Or else my luck is no longer worth
a damn.

At the start line, Rupp looks either A) too psyched, or B)
like he's sleepy and popped too many Zyrtec. He's all loopy and advances to the start line
before it's time and has to back up and wait.

2:16 at lap 2.

3:21 at lap 3. Rupp perhaps too eager to be in lead.

Lap 4 is run in 65.7, lap 6 in 66.6 and lap 7 in 65.5.

Abdi Abdirahman looks hella strong.

8:17 at the 3000m mark.

Lap 8 run in 66.9. Rupp is basically running fartleks, which
is running relaxed and at ease with interspersed short sprints. He uses this
tactic to regain the top four, time and time again. Some reporters behind me
think he's going to suffer because of this. If you watch Rupp over time,
though, you realize he just likes fartleks. No word on whether he likes to call
them fartleks or the more PC-friendly "tempo runs." In Swedish, fartlek means "speed play."

At lap 9, Abdi hawks a loogie on the finish line and for a minute I think he's
losing steam.

Bright yellow thundersticks are waving about along the 200m
curve. I wonder how they got those past security … I mean, all of a sudden a
small spot of Hayward is now Autzen Stadium. Rupp takes notice of the
thundersticks (as if he doesn't need to be reminded that the entire crowd is
rooting for him).

13:49 at the 5k mark (half-way). Monday's 5k final was won in 13:27, for reference.

The top three of Abdi, Rupp and Jorge Torres have a comfortable gap between them and the next pack of runners with only four laps
to go.

19:25 at the 7k mark. I don't think Rupp likes being third in this triumvirate, as he keeps sprinting in front of Torres. But Rupp can't crowd on Abdi too much, cuz Abdi has some sharp elbows. With my binoculars I see some definite elbowing going on.

With one lap to go, Rupp goes but Abdi holds him off. Unlike other local runners, Rupp doesn't have an amazing kick, but still comes in close behind Abdi for 2nd.

Later, Abdi sprints his victory lap (while other runners are still racing) and dives into the steeplechase drink.

The Register-Guard is unimpressed by Rupp's race. Wow, here they are, such non-critics of all things to do with UO sports, suddenly getting all critical of its track and field athletes' glory.