Olympic Trials

For more than a year, Eugene has been a-buzz with news of the 2008 Track & Field Olympic Trials to be held here at the U of O Hayward Field. Evidently the Trials used to be held here every 4 years and now they are back after an absence – renewing much pride in our title of “Track Town USA.” Finally the big week arrived!

BN and I got to go see the Monday events. He’s teaching a morning class this term so I rode my bike to campus (no parking within a 2 mile radius of the venue!) to meet him there. Before entering we scarfed down the sandwiches I’d packed (no outside food or beverages, you must fork it over for overpriced festival food) and got to the field right as the first event was starting, the men’s decathlon 110m Hurdles. Those went so quickly that I didn’t get any good photos – those guys probably had to count every step to stay in sync with the hurdles, and I couldn’t even get my shutter finger in gear quick enough. Oh, well.

The rest of the daytime session was decathlon events – next was the Discus Throw. This was also hard to capture on film since the throwers were in a small “batting cage” down at the opposite corner of the infield from us. But we had a good view of the distance markers and we were amused to note that they used remote-control toy trucks to carry the thrown discuses (disci?) back to the starting point.

(Click on the pictures to see them bigger)

One of the most interesting and suspenseful events to watch was the Pole Vault. There was some complications around who started at what bar height, but basically how it worked is each athlete had 3 attempts to clear the bar, and if he made it he’d go on to attempt the next height increment. So the decathletes were gradually eliminated until the only ones left were Tom Pappas of the top-3 superstars and Ashton Eaton, a local darling from the UO track team, only 19 years old. TP set a new personal record (PR) and AE cleared almost every attempt, rapidly rising to almost the same height as TP. Yay!

We jammed out of there to grab an early dinner at McMenamin’s, our preferred burger joint about a block from Hayward Field. (no overpriced festival food for us!) When we got back the Javelin Throw was under way.

The evening session started to get a little crazy, with multiple events going on at once – the men’s Hammer Throw which was actually outside the main field; women’s High Jump and Long Jump (we didn’t get a great view of those) and Javelin; and lots of running. Here’s a picture that shows the big screen where we could see some closeups and instant replays that we would have missed otherwise; the sand pits for Long Jump and the High Jump poles with landing pads. The men are lining up for their 400m Dash semifinal.

It was so much fun to be at the trials and see a little bit of everything. We watched 2 semifinal heats of women’s 3000m Steeplechase – the girls have to run about 8 laps with several obstacles consisting of a fixed jump thingy (don’t want to call it a hurdle, not sure what the real name for it is) and a puddle of water. I’ve run across obstacles like these out in the wild while backpacking – downed trees and muddy creeks. Glad I didn’t have to run and jump… (but those girls didn’t have 20 lb loads on their backs, either.)

The stadium really filled up by the time the evening session was in full swing, and the peak of crowd-cheering intensity came during the astonishing finish of the men’s 800m final. Just twice around the track, the top 3 finishers came from behind for a flashy finish – and all Oregon-sponsored. 2 from the Oregon Track Club and one from the U of O. Rock on, home team!

We got to watch our decathletes complete their final event, the 1500m. The top 3 guys didn’t finish first in the run, but their cumulative scores were secured from the preceding events. Those decathletes deserve serious props for their well-rounded skills and stamina. Very impressive! Here they are on their post-awards-ceremony victory lap:

To wrap up the evening we watched the men’s 5000m final. For the first half at least, one guy was way out in front and the rest were in a tight pack. That was kind of a different approach than we’d seen all day. He eventually fell back to the middle-rear but we mused how the race results had been affected – maybe everyone ran faster because of him?

After an enjoyable and inspiring day, I was a bit sore from spending so much time sitting on bleacher seats, but all fired up to run the 10k on the Glorious 4th – thinking that 2008 is a fun year to be a resident of Track Town USA.