Natasha Hastings advances to 400 final at Olympic Trials

 

EUGENE, Ore. – In the biggest meet of her life, New York’s own Natasha Hastings has advanced to the final of the women’s 400 meters at the Olympic Trials. The race will be held at 8:05 Pacific time Thursday evening.

 

Hastings finished 2nd in Heat I on Monday evening in 51.04. The race was won by Mary Wineberg in 50.57. Heat II was won by Sanya Richards in 50.75.

 

“I felt really strong,” said Richards, who will be the favorite in the race and is the likely favorite to win the gold medal in Beijing as well. “I enjoy being the favorite. I know I have a target on my back, but it just means I had the best times coming in, and I like that.”

 

Richards was favored a year ago at the Nationals but fell all the way to 4th, thus failing to make the U.S. team in the World Championships. Hastings won a gold medal at those championships in the 4x4, and she can make the relay pool by finishing in the top six in Thursday’s race.

 

She is attempting, at 21, to make her first Olympic team, the next step in a steady series of improvements: winning the Arcadia Invitational high school meet in 2002 as a sophomore at A. Philip Randolph High School; winning a PSAL championship and taking APR to the Penn Relays 4x4 final in ’04; winning the World Juniors 400 that summer, before moving on to the University of South Carolina; winning the NCAA championship and breaking 50 seconds (49.84) a year ago, before turning professional and giving up her senior year of eligibility to get ready for the Olympics.

 

Shana Cox, fellow New Yorker, finished 5th in her heat in 51.90 and failed to advance. Cox won the NCAA championship for Penn State two weeks ago.

 

It was the 800 finals Monday that received the most attention before a fourth straight packed house at Hayward Field. (Attendance has exceeded 20,000 every day.)

 

In the men’s race, Nick Symmonds led Oregonians to an extraordinary sweep of the three places on the U.S. team. Symmonds broke free on the inside just in time, then dashed down the straightaway to win in 1:44.10, a lifetime best.

 

Behind him, there was plenty more drama. Far to the outside, Andrew Wheating, a University of Oregon sophomore from Vermont, in his 2nd year of running, slowly took his 6-foot-5 frame around most of the field, and when he burst free into 2nd place with 70 meters to go, the hometown crowd went into a frenzy.

 

If that weren’t enough, Christian Smith, a pony-tailed Kansan who lives and trains in Eugene now, was in a desperate battle for the final spot on the team. At the finish, he and the veteran Khadevis Robinson threw themselves at the finish. It was Smith, by hundredths, in a time that gave him the Olympic ‘A’ standard that he also needed to be eligible for the Games.

 

“It was just all I had left,” Smith said, “and I knew it would be close.”

 

In closeup photographs, it appeared that Robinson even grabbed at Smith’s shirt in a desperate struggle at the finish. “If Jesus had been there, I would’ve grabbed him,” Robinson said.

 

The Oregon connection was hard to miss. “The first thing I saw was that Nick was 1st, I was 2nd and Christian was 3rd,” the personable Wheating said. “It hasn’t really hit me yet. Give me a couple more minutes, and I’ll probably shoot up out of this chair and scream, ‘I made it!’”

 

Hazel Clark, who attended Columbia HS in Maplewood N.J. just as her older sister Joetta had, made her third Olympic team, winning the women’s 800 in 1:59.82. “It was tough there at the end, but I was very excited,” said Clark, who has made one Olympic final and one World Championships final but has never medaled. “I’m going for it. I want to bring a medal back to this country.”

 

Behind Clark came Alice Schmidt and Kameisha Bennett, but Bennett does not make the Olympic team because she has not surpassed the Olympic ‘A’ standard of 2:00.00. Instead, the 4th-place finisher, Nicole Teter, who ran the ‘A’ a year ago, goes to Beijing. “I knew immediately that I would be on the team,” said Teter, also now a Eugene resident, “because I looked at the times.”

 

Morgan Uceny, a Cornell grad, was 6th in 2:02.16, and Latavia Thomas, Philadelphian at LSU, was 11th in 2:05.15.

 

In the men’s 400 semis, Erison Hurtault of Columbia and O.J. Hogans, the Seton Hall graduate now running for the Shore A.C., both failed to advance. They finished 7th and 8th respectively in Semi II. Hurtault then announced that he hopes to represent Dominica, the Caribbean nation where his parents were born, in Beijing.

 

Reggie Witherspoon was the surprise winner of Semi I, in 44.99, a lifetime best. Witherspoon set the national high school record in the indoor 400 at the Armory as a high school senior from Georgia, then had an up-and-down college career at Florida and Baylor. This was his biggest win in a long time. “It went great, and that’s what I wanted to do,” Witherspoon said. “Coach told me to run as fast as I could, and that’s what I did.”

 

In the women’s 5,000-meter qualifying, Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher, who ran 1-2 in last Friday’s 10,000, advanced to the final along with other favorites Lauren Fleshman and Jen Rhines. Oregon’s Nicole Blood and former Princeton runner Cack Ferrell both failed to advance.  Both Rhines and Blood attended high school in New York, as did Molly Huddle who did advance to the final.

 

Delilah DiCrescenzo, former Columbia runner, advanced to the final of the women’s steeplechase, running 9:56.44 for 5th place in Heat I. DiCrescenzo has been getting a lot of attention locally ever since the Eugene Register-Guard newspaper wrote an item identifying her as the subject of the hit song “Hey There, Delilah.”

 

Lesley Higgins of the New York AC also advanced to the final, while Lindsay Sundell, New Yorker who attended Florida, failed to advance. 

 

Lindsay’s brother, Steve, a Columbia graduate, is scheduled to run the men’s 10,000 later this week.

 

In the women’s long jump, Hyleas Fountain, earlier winner of the heptathlon, led the qualifying with 21-10 ¼. Shameka Marshall of the Shore AC advanced, jumping 21-0w, while Tisifinee Taylor of the Monmouth TC did not advance.

 

Jake Freeman, Manhattan graduate, threw 236-6 to make the hammer final. Kibwe Johnson (NYAC) also made the final, Nick Owens (Shore AC) did not. Deirdre Mullen (Shore AC) made the women’s high jump final but teammate Beth Ann Costagno did not.

 

New Rochelle high school graduate and current UConn athlete Carin Knight no heighted in thte high jump prelims.