It will be an event of firsts and lasts in today’s Oregon Twilight meet. In the last Oregon track and field meet in Eugene this season, it will be the first time fans can get a look at the most recent seating additions added to Hayward Field in preparation for the Olympic Trials. It will also be the last chance to get a glimpse of some of Oregon’s seniors in their last competition at home.
The Ducks will recognize 18 seniors at the meet, including All-American men’s sprinters Phil Alexander, Marcus Dillon, and women’s distance runner Dana Buchanan and sprinter Irie Searcy.
Oregon coach Vin Lananna is particularly excited about the field events, considering the infield will be littered with Olympic athletes who have arrived early in Eugene to prepare for the trials.
“The hammer will be fantastic,” Lananna said. “The javelin’s going to be really good.”
The men’s hammer, which starts at 6:30 p.m., will feature A.G. Kruger, who was the runner-up in the 2004 USA Olympic Trials and a two-time defending USA outdoor champion.
Kim Kreiner, the American record holder (210 feet, seven inches) and four-time USA champion in the javelin, headlines the event that begins at 7 p.m. and also includes three other women who have thrown the javelin more than 180 feet. Former Duck Sarah Malone is one of them.
The new seating arrangements, standing 57 feet tall on the south side of the track, won’t be open to fans this meet but they’ll still have to walk through them to maneuver around Hayward Field. The idea is to give the track feel more like a stadium atmosphere.
Pac-10s start for multi-event athletes
Meanwhile, in Tempe, Ariz., some Ducks will compete today in the heptathlon and decathlon portion of the Pacific-10 Conference Championships, a week before the rest of the events take place.
Last year, as a freshman competing in his second-ever decathlon, Ashton Eaton scored 7,123 points to take second place in competition and hopes to do the same, if not better this time around – hoping to gain momentum by vaulting the Ducks to the top of the standings early on.
“It’s all about getting points for the team,” Eaton said. “Whatever you have to do to sacrifice yourself to do that, that’s what I’m going to do.
“The thing that’s motivating me right now is getting the team in the best position possible.”
Eaton’s best decathlon performance this season (7,792 at Sacramento State) exceeds Washington State’s Rickey Moody’s best (7,787) by five points.
Joining Eaton are Marshall Ackley, who owns the sixth-best Pac-10 mark this year of 6,356, and junior Alexey Shkuratov, who hasn’t competed in the decathlon this season but finished sixth at the Pac-10s two years ago.
The women, too, will be sending three athletes to the meet to compete in the heptathlon.
“The women look quite good,” Lananna said of Brianne Theisen, Kalindra McFadden and Erin Funkhouser’s chances of scoring for Oregon.
Theisen and McFadden own the second and third best heptathlon performances in the conference this season, respectively, behind Arizona State’s Jacquelyn Johnson (6,143 points). Funkhouser ranks 10th.
“This is for sure the strongest conference in the nation for the heptathlon,” McFadden said. “So it’s always exciting to get in there.”
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