Friday, December 18

Thursday, December 17

Wednesday, December 16

Coleman Cruises To The Bowerman In 2017

Usually in a championship semifinal, an athlete is content with seeing a “Q” or “q” next to his or her name. Bigger is better – because it means they didn’t have to sweat out each heat – but they all advance to the same final in the end, no matter how it’s achieved.

Well, Christian Coleman of Tennessee got that “Q” in the 100-meter semifinal on the first day of the 2017 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships, as well as the letters “CR” and “MR” next to it after blistering the Hayward Field track to the tune of 9.82 seconds.

That’s right: Coleman shattered 2011 The Bowerman winner Ngoni Makusha’s six-year-old collegiate record and meet record of 9.89 to open a whirlwind of a meet three years ago. Coleman, who tied the collegiate record in the 60 meters and notched the second fastest mark in collegiate history in the 200 meters at the NCAA Indoor Championships, got out quickly and left the competition standing still. By the time Coleman eased off the gas near the finish line, he had already established a massive lead.

Winds weren’t as favorable two days later, so Coleman’s sole focus was winning and achieving the 100-200 double, which – if accomplished – would make him the first man since fellow Vol legend Justin Gatlin to complete the double-double (60-200 indoors, 100-200 outdoors).

Coleman cruised to an easy 10.04 victory in the 100 (The race was run into a 2.1 m/s headwind). Then Coleman held off a strong challenge from Nathaneel Mitchell-Blake of LSU in the 200 to win by 0.04 seconds at 20.25 (-3.1) for the smallest margin of victory in the past 14 years.

All told, Coleman won four NCAA titles, broke or tied a pair of collegiate records and notched numerous all-time top-10 performances in 2017. That resulted in Coleman winning The Bowerman, collegiate track & field’s highest honor, on this day three years ago. Coleman beat out one of the strongest classes in The Bowerman history for the award, topping the talented Texas A&M duo of Fred Kerley and Lindon Victor, who both left their mark on collegiate history.

Monday, December 14

Sunday, December 13

Saturday, December 12

Friday, December 11

Thursday, December 10

Wednesday, December 9

Tuesday, December 8

Simply Divine: Oduduru Runs Into History

Divine Oduduru only needed 29.59 seconds to make history at the 2019 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Austin, Texas.

That’s 42.65% of one minute and less than 1% of one hour.

9.86 seconds of that total came in the 100, where Oduduru posted the second fastest time in both meet history and collegiate history. Only Christian Coleman ran faster in 2017 (9.82).

That left 19.73 seconds for Oduduru in the 200, which broke a 32-year-old meet record and made him the second fastest performer in collegiate history behind Walter Dix from 2007.

Combined, Oduduru clocked the second fastest same-day sprint double in world history. It had been 16 years since Justin Gatlin established that all-time standard at 29.48 seconds.

Sunday, December 6

Saturday, December 5

Friday, December 4

Thursday, December 3

Wednesday, December 2

Kendell Williams Was Multi-Talented

It doesn’t get much closer in the heptathlon than it did six years ago at the 2014 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships between Kendell Williams of Georgia and Allison Reaser of San Diego State.

Williams, then a freshman wunderkind who had set the high school record in the event and owned the World junior record in the indoor pentathlon, beat Reaser by just 18 points. That is the smallest margin of victory in meet history, eclipsing the previous standard by two points (Christi Smith of Akron won the NCAA heptathlon title by 20 points 14 years earlier).

Here’s the thing: It shouldn’t have been that close.

Williams held a 192-point lead following Day 1 and extended her advantage to 236 points after soaring 6.13m (20-1½) in the long jump on the first event of Day 2. Defending champion Lindsay Vollmer was in second place for most of the multi and proved to be Williams’ toughest opponent, but aggravated a hip flexor and wouldn’t finish the competition.

True drama unfolded two events later when Williams fell early in the 800. Williams got back to her feet and eventually caught up to the pack, but faded and finished in 2:28.59 (Reaser, however, was 16 seconds faster at 2:12.08 PR and gained 223 points. If Reaser found an extra 1.33 seconds in those two laps, the NCAA title would have been hers).

“My legs were tired and having to get up and run, I kind of hit a wall,” Williams later told the assembled media. “I felt like maybe I had lost it. I was just trying to finish.

“But it feels good to be able to pull it out,” Williams continued. “I just feel really lucky.”

Williams didn’t leave much to chance over the next three years.

After a runner-up finish in 2015 – in what was the deepest heptathlon in meet history – Williams won back-to-back crowns in 2016 and 2017 by an average of 221.5 points. She dominated as a senior in 2017, posting 6265-point total (fifth largest in meet history) and a winning margin of 307 points (third most since 2003).

And while this initiative is about the NCAA Outdoor Championships, Williams was in a class of her own indoors. Williams is the only woman in NCAA DI history to win four national titles in the same indoor event, doing so in the pentathlon from 2014 to 2017.

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