See them run ... jump, throw and leap
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Unlike gymnastics and basketball, there are no behind-closed-doors meetings when it’s time to select the U.S. track and field team. The decisions are immediate.
Athletes who want to compete during the Beijing Games must go all-out at this weekend’s U.S. Olympic Team Trials at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. The list of athletes who will compete for the trip is at www.usatf.org.
Not everyone likes the winners-take-all approach. Doubters say it’s foolish to put such proven commodities as Tyson Gay -- who ran the fastest U.S. 100-meter race of 2008 -- at risk of injury. (The Times carried this story about Gay recently.) Rich Perelman, writing at wcsn.com, sums up opposition to track and field’s competition this way:
This system has been widely criticized by athletes, fans and the media since it forces athletes who are in demonstrably good condition to go through the pressure-packed trials and potentially eliminates medal-winners from competing in the Olympic games. Who can forget the stunning collapse of gold-medal favorite Dan O’Brien in the 1992 trials in New Orleans, where he was sailing along towards a trials win and a world-leading score when he failed to clear a height in the points-rich pole vault and scored just 7,853 points, finishing 11th. As it turned out, a vault of just more than nine feet would have put him on the team for Barcelona. Motivated by his failure, he won the gold medal in Atlanta in 1996.
The action begins Friday In Eugene, which also hosted the 1972, 1976 and 1980 Olympic Trials.
But competition also makes for memorable races. Peer pressure causes some top athletes to crack, just as it gives relatively unheralded athletes a chance to shine. And, after all, Perelman writes, isn’t that what it’s all about?
--Greg Johnson