Thought you saw something special this year, didn’t you?
Don’t get me wrong, now. The adrenaline, like the fans, spilled over the fences and into the track for the 4xMile relay at the Oregon Twilight on Saturday. Matthew Centrowitz, Andrew Wheating, Galen Rupp and Shadrack Biwott needed all the help they could get to complete the relay in 16:03.24, breaking Michigan’s 2005 collegiate record.
The event was treated with much fanfare, announced to the press as far back as April 4, the day after the Pepsi Invitational. Associate athletic director Vin Lananna courted several collegiate powers and professional teams from as distant of lands as Australia to join the Ducks in this endeavor. Competition, after all, was needed to push the Oregon athletes.
Rupp’s fastest-ever mile was 3:57.86; Centrowitz’s, 3:57.92. (Both were set indoors; Rupp broke Centrowitz’s indoor mile school record with his race in the Husky Last Chance Qualifier in February.) Wheating had set his personal mile best of 3:58.16 in a memorable race at last year’s Oregon Relays, one that virtually anointed him Oregon’s Next Breakout Star. Biwott ran an unattached mile in 4:04.96 during the 2006 outdoor track season, which he redshirted as a Duck. It was his only previous collegiate competitive mile.
They had one shot.
To run four near-personal bests in the mile, with the only competition from an Oregon Track Elite squad nowhere near peak outdoor shape, asked a lot of these Oregon men, but they delivered in spectacular fashion. Another distance running record at Hayward; Track Town USA lived up to its name.
The story of the 4xMile relay ends here, but the bigger picture came into greater focus, once Lananna spoke to the media following the race.
“Next year, we’re going to try to set the women’s 4×15(00 meters record),” Lananna said. “That’s going to be our goal for next year.”
That’s the new game. The women’s 4×1,500m relay collegiate record, attempted during the Oregon Twilight at Hayward Field, a brand new spectacle for track fans to enjoy.
Rupp is a graduating senior this year, so Lananna had only one shot at the 4xMile mark. For the women’s 4×1,500m mark, again, Lananna has only one shot.
Oregon women hold three of the top eight 1,500m marks in the Pacific-10 Conference this season: Zoe Buckman (4:15.66, PR, set at the Oregon Twilight), Nicole Blood (4:17.55, Twilight) and Alex Kosinski (4:18.43, PR, Pepsi Team Invitational). Blood’s personal best in the event, set at last year’s Oregon Relays, is 4:14.72, which would beat out Buckman for second-best this year. (Matthew Centrowitz’s sister Lauren, a senior at Stanford, holds the top mark of 4:10.42, the 16th-best 1,500m in the world this year.)
Enter Jordan Hasay, the national high-school record holder in the 1,500m and recent Oregon commit. Her letter of intent has been faxed to the Casanova Center, and she will suit up in the green and yellow next year. Her personal best is 4:14.50, set at – where else? – Hayward Field during the 2008 U.S. Track & Field Trials. The senior-to-be made the finals of that event, finishing 10th overall.
Blood and Buckman will be seniors next year. Kosinski will be a junior, and Hasay a freshman. One shot.
Rounding up to the nearest full second, the four’s personal bests would combine to form a relay time of 17:16. That’s just shy of the collegiate record of 17:15.62, set by Michigan at the 2007 Penn Relays. The Wolverines’ Katie Erdman (4:22.0), Geena Gall (4:21.4), Anna Willard (4:13.9) and Nicole Edwards (4:18.3) broke the previous collegiate record of 17:18.10, set by Villanova in 1990.
One shot.
The story won’t end there, either. Rupp graduates, but one of the greatest female track recruits in school history, Hasay, assumes her place. The women’s track program, a sturdy foundation built up under Lananna’s tenure, suddenly gets serious and competes for an NCAA Championship, the first since 1985. Rumors of Oregon’s intention to build an indoor track will manifest and gain traction; coupled with an improving economy, that vision will become more and more realistic. Oregon continues to assert itself – the destination for national titles. As for Hayward Field – the most hallowed collegiate track in the nation, where legendary performances come to fruition.
One shot.
I have little doubt that, when Lananna first seriously considered the 4xMile relay, his vision included Rupp running the anchor leg, carried by the raucous crowds. Imagine Hasay, baton in hand, rounding the Bowerman curve, gasping for air, cheered on by the crowd and her three excited teammates. This is what Lananna sees.
One shot.
The men made it count. You’d be a fool to count out the women.
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