By Christopher Hunt
all photos Mary DiBiase Blaich/wingedfootfotos.com
When the race concluded, Natasha Hastings walked in the media room and sprawled across a black couch in the corner and settled in. She’s always been comfortable at the Armory.
But when she clipped the back of Aliann Pompey’s foot on the first lap of the women’s elite 400 meters she needed to stave off the irritation. She used the back straight to pull close while Nigeria’s Ajoke Odumosu and Pompey of Guyana tried to get away and Shevon Stoddart moved to her outside.
Hastings squeezed by Stoddart, a Uniondale grad, and swung wide to Lane 3, then lifted to the finish ahead of everyone, finishing in 52.68 at the New Balance Games and fittingly starting her comeback at home. Her time is the third-fastest in the country this year. Odumosu finished second in 53.37 and Pompey, a former Manhattan College standout, was third in 53.68.
“The time was definitely not where I wanted to be but that’s encouraging to know that I got tripped up a little bit, ran wide and still managed to run decent,” said Hastings, who was a star at Manhattan’s A. Phillip Randolph High School.
It wasn’t just a return to New York that brought familiar surrounding to Hastings. She also left her coach Bob Kersee and went back to training with Curtis Fyre, her coach when she was an NCAA 400-meter champ at South Carolina. It was with Fyre that Hastings enjoyed most of her success on a post-collegiate level, highlighted by a silver medal at 2007 US Championships where she ran a personal best 49.84.
Hastings then moved to Florida to train with Lance Brauman, who at the time was also training Tyson Gay and Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell. She earned a gold medal as a member of the U.S. 4x400 relay at the Beijing Olympics but never saw the right side of 50 seconds again. After a year with Brauman, Hastings spent 2008 training under legendary coach Bob Kersee, but still never regained the form she was in under Fyre.
Hastings, 23, moved from Clemont, Fla., back to Columbia, S.C., to finish her undergraduate degree in exercise science – she graduated in December – and reunited with her college coach, Fyre, in late November.
“The decision, as any other decision, was very hard because me leaving Bobby was tough because he took on the pressure and the struggles and the strife that I went through last year,” Hastings said. “It was personal for him and I felt like I was bailing on him.
That was a tough phone call for me to make. I told him I don’t think it takes a year to get adjusted to a coach’s program. For me and my career and my sanity, it was just a decision I had to make for myself. It was a tough decision and I felt like I wasn’t giving Bobby his fair shot but I had to do what’s best for me.”
Hastings didn’t shy away from calling this year a comeback year. But the question remained: Why leave Fyre in the first place?
Now with Hastings back in a familiar training program her biggest adjustment is being one of the oldest people in her training group. She’s been training with walk-ons on the men’s team. As familiar as South Carolina may be, she’s still made a home at the New Balance Track and Field Center.
“It was a proud moment,” she said. “I was putting a lot of pressure on myself but like I said, I wanted to put on a good show.”
Great Britain’s Andy Baddeley won the elite men’s mile in 3:55.64, the fastest time in the world this year. Erin Donohue, a Haddonfield (N.J.) graduate, won the women’s mile in 4:28.92, also a world leader. Donohue held off a hard charge from Nicole Edwards on the bell lap. Edwards finished in 4:29.42. Miles Smith ran down Jeremey Davis on the home stretch to win the men’s elite 400 in 46.70. Davis was second in 46.74.
all photos Mary DiBiase Blaich/wingedfootfotos.com
By Christopher Hunt