In a press conference Friday, one day before the Prefontaine Classic, Oregon runner Andrew Wheating said, “If I can run a fast (personal record), it’s a win for me.”
Wheating did more than that on Saturday, finishing the Bowerman Mile, the last event of the competition, in fifth place and shattering the school record at the distance, finishing in 3:51.74 seconds in his last appearance in an Oregon uniform.
“It’s unbelievable. I thought NCAAs was great; this is something else, the send-off and the entry to a whole new thing,” Wheating said.
Wheating was not the only Oregon mile runner to have success at Hayward Field on Saturday. A.J. Acosta entered the International Mile earlier in the day. Acosta’s performance was, for a few hours, the second-best mile run in school history, as he finished second in 3:53.76, on the strength of a huge kick with 200 meters to go.
“I probably don’t want to repeat what was going through my head. There were a lot of expletives and “Holy smokes!” and something to that degree,” Acosta said. “I thought 3:55 would be a great race because that would be a two or three second PR … this is like way faster than I ever thought I could run.”
The standout performances at the Prefontaine Classic didn’t just come from Oregon athletes, however. Five men’s meet records were broken (110-meter hurdles, 200 meters, 1,000 meters, 5,000 meters and shot put) in the first year of the Pre’s membership in the IAAF Diamond League, which is the premier sanctioning body for track and field events. The Diamond League consists of 14 meets, of which the Classic was the sixth and the second of two meets in the United States.
In the 110-meter hurdles, American David Oliver tied the national record, completing the race in 12.90 seconds, and tying the fourth-best mark ever.
“I can’t recall anything from the race, so I know it was fast. When there’s a lot of fans, you always run better,” Oliver said. “I know the start was OK, the finish was good and the time was great.”
There was an upset victory in the 200 meters, as American Walter Dix, who ran 19.72 seconds, bested fellow countryman Tyson Gay by four one-hundredths of a second. Gay, the American 100-meter record-holder who was felled in the 2008 Olympic Trials at Hayward Field with a hamstring injury in the 200m, said Friday he was at 85 percent because of another unrelated hamstring injury.
Dix, who has the second-best time in the world this year, said, “I’m glad I got that competition against Tyson, and I’m glad I came out victorious … Tyson’s a great competitor and he was the fastest man in America last year, and I’m glad I can take that title away from him this year.”
The 1,000 meters was run as a one-off attempt at a world record for Abubaker Kaki Khamis of Sudan. With two pacesetters dropping out of the race and no Diamond League points given for the event, Kaki Khamis was still unable to break the nearly 11-year-old record of Kenyan Noah Ngeny. Eugene resident and former Willamette University runner Nick Symmonds finished third in the race.
The 5,000 meters podium was swept by Ethiopians, as Tariku Bekele led home Dejen Gebremeskel and Imane Merga by just over a second, finishing in 12:58.93. Gebremeskel finished in 12:59.30 and Merga completed in 13:00.18.
In the shot put, Christian Cantwell threw 22.41 meters, winning by more than a meter over Dylan Armstrong. Cantwell has won all four of the Diamond League shot put events in 2010.
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