Erin Donohue, the Haddonfield (N.J.) native who is back in the metro area training with Coach Frank Gagliano, broke 2:00 in the 800 meters for the first time in her career this week, running 1:59.99 to win the Naimette-Xhovemont meet on Tuesday in Liege, Belgium. Jamaican Kenia Sinclair, a Seton Hall grad, finished second in the race, in 2:00.35.
Donohue, 27, has been a 1,500 specialist in recent years. She finished second at that distance at this year’s national championships in Iowa, and was sixth in the 1,500 at this year’s World Indoor Championships.
Donohue seems to like the meet in Liege. Her lifetime best of 2:01.12 was set in the 2007 edition of the meet, and ran 2:01.19 there a year later. Her previous 2010 800 best was 2:02.34, on May 22.
She joins at least four other New Jerseyans who have broken 2:00 – the sisters Joetta and Hazel Clark, Michelle DiMuro, and Sinclair – and becomes the 37th American woman to do so.
Delilah DiCrescenzo, an assistant coach at Columbia University, ran the steeple in Liege and finished seventh in 9:59.18, her first time under 10:00 this year. Lisa Barber (Montclair, NJ) was fourth in the 100, in 11.35, and Georgetown’s Andrew Bumbalough finished eighth in the men’s 3,000, in 7:51.87.
In the NACAC U-23 meet over the weekend in Miramar, Fla., New Yorker Trisha-Ann Hawthorne, of UConn, finished fifth in the women’s 100, running 11.53w. Hawthorne represents Jamaica. She also anchored Jamaica’s second-place 4x100 team. The U.S. won that race, 43.07-44.20.
Walter Henning finished second in the men’s hammer, throwing 227-5; Princeton’s Don Cabral ran the steeple in 8:52, winning by a wide margin, and West Virginia teammates Keri Bland (US) and Jessica O’Connell (Canada) finished 1-2 in the women’s 1,500, running 4:24-4:25. /JP/