Thousand Oaks Will Watch Jones’ Next Run for Gold

Thousand Oaks High is sponsoring a viewing party and rally tonight for alumna Marion Jones, who will be seeking her second gold medal when she runs in the 200-meter final.

Jones, who won the 100 in 10.75 on Saturday, is trying to become the first woman to win five gold medals in track and field in the same Olympics. She has qualified for the final of the long jump and will run in the 400 and 1,600 relays.

Jones ran 22.75 and 22.50 in qualifying heats of the 200 on Wednesday, and went 22-3 in the long jump.

The viewing party will be from 8-10:30 p.m. at the Thousand Oaks High Performing Arts Center.

The event is sponsored in part by www.marionjones.com, the official Web site for Jones.

Although no athlete has won five gold medals in five track and field events in the same Olympics, Jones said that was not her focus when she came up with the idea.

“Two years ago, when my coach and I first came out with this idea of five gold medals, we had no idea of the historical significance,” she said. “We didn’t realize it until a reporter sat down with us and said, ‘Did you know that no one has done that before?’ We said, ‘Oh really?’

“That’s not our basis and people are often in awe of that. We came out because we think it’s possible.”

The rally will include Jones’ former track and field coach, Art Green, Thousand Oaks High girls’ basketball Coach Chuck Brown, and members of the relay team that ran with Jones sharing their memories.

Seating is limited. Food and beverages will be available.

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Pete Vagenas, a starting midfielder for the U.S. men’s soccer team who was an All-American at St. Francis High and UCLA, has scored three goals in the tournament--on penalty kicks.

His third came Wednesday in a 3-1 loss to Spain in a semifinal. After a foul inside the 18-yard box, Vagenas drilled the penalty shot into the net to close the gap to 2-1.

Vagenas scored his second goal against Japan in the quarterfinals to help tie the game, 2-2, send it into overtime. The U.S. eventually won it in a shootout, 5-4. Vagenas converted one of those kicks, too.

The 22-year-old, a rookie midfielder for the Los Angeles Galaxy, scored on a penalty kick in a 2-2 tie with Cameroon in group play.

The U.S. advanced from the qualifying round for the first time in Olympic play and takes on Chile later today for the bronze medal.

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Troy Dumais of Ventura and David Pichler just missed the bronze medal, finishing fourth in men’s three-meter synchronized diving.

“We did the dives better than we ever have before,” Dumais said. “I guess it wasn’t good enough. We didn’t miss a thing. There was nothing more we could have done. I don’t know what the judges think or what they saw.”

Pichler, a 32-year-old from Butler, Pa., diving in his second Olympics, and Dumais, 12 years younger, started slowly before making a run for a medal on their last two dives.

They received marks of 7.5 and 8.0 for their final effort, a forward 2 1/2 somersault with two twists that equaled the highest degree of difficulty of any dive in the event.

Robert Newberry and Dean Pullar of Australia had high enough marks on reverse 1 1/2 somersault with 3 1/2 twists on their final dive to finish with 322.86 points. Pichler and Dumais finished at 320.91.

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Marla Runyan, a Camarillo High graduate who became the first U.S. paralympian to reach the Olympics, advanced past the qualifying round of the women’s 1,500 meters but will have to improve on her 4:10.83 clocking to make the final.

Runyan, who is legally blind, was seeded 11th in her semifinal. The top four runners in her semifinal ran in the 4:08s in qualifying.

“Visually there were no excuses and no problems, except the finish was very crowded,” Runyan said. “The track was fine. It was great running in this stadium in front of this crowd.”