Wheating Thrills 6,875 at Hayward with sub-4:00 Mile Win

04/26/2008 - GoDucks.com

EUGENE, Ore. – Andrew Wheating’s thrilling sprint to the finish to win the mile in 3:58.16 to follow a season-best finish from the men’s 4-by-400 relay team capped a full day of track and field at the Oregon Relays, presented by Oregon Community Credit Union, run before a season-high crowd of 6,875 at Historic Hayward Field.

Running in fifth place after three laps, Wheating made his move with 300 yards left, passing a trio of runners from the Oregon Track Club. The OTC’s Will Leer broke after Wheating, but the sophomore from Norwich, Vt., held on to win by half a second.

Not only did Wheating run the 11th fastest time in school history, but he also became the first native of Vermont to run a sub-4:00 mile.

Senior Joaquin Chapa also had a PR in the mile, finishing fourth in 4:02.44. Both Chapa and Wheating registered NCAA regional qualifying times.

The mile also featured the Hayward Field return of Galen Rupp, the Oregon senior who is redshirting in track this season in order to train for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Running in a race shorter than his normal distances, Rupp finished the mile sixth in 4:03.16.

To read the rest of this article, go here. Courtesy GoDucks.com

Article for Flotrack by Andrew Greif

For the first time in two weeks Friday night, the skies around Eugene, Ore., weren't filled with rain clouds, instead letting the nearly 2,000 athletes competing or watching the first-annual Oregon Relays at Hayward Field enjoy the all-afternoon meet.

It seems even the weather takes notice when a track meet happens in Track Town, U.S.A.

The Oregon Relays combined two formerly separate meets, the high-school focused XO Invitational and the collegiate and professional oriented Oregon Invitational, into one. The meet's live broadcast by Flotrack is the first live internet coverage at Hayward Field in history. Oregon Director of Track and Field Vin Lananna believes the inaugural meet's first day started well.

"The high school kids had a good experience," Lananna said. "I think what it does is it becomes somewhat contagious, the atmosphere is exciting and I think tomorrow will be a big day for us."

Kara Goucher was one of many notable athletes to claim a victory at the meet, with hers coming in the penultimate event of the meet, the women's 5,000 meters. The Colorado grad explained her first 5K win of 2007 wasn't about the time, but the training.

"Time was really irrelevant today," Goucher said. "I'm running 100 miles a week so I'm not fresh."

While she wanted to run faster, she said it's all part of pacing herself before returning to Eugene for the Olympic Trials in late June and early July.

"I'm really focused on Eugene and Beijing and I'm so focused on that that I'm able to kind of put everything else aside. I'm so driven and I've been hurt for so long and this is the first legitimate chance I have to make the Olympic team," Goucher said.

"It's hard because I want to run fast and I want to try to break the American record but I want to be on that podium so bad again that it's worth the sacrifice to let this stuff go."

In the Bill McChesney Jr. Memorial 5,000, Oregon sophomore and 2006 Foot Locker cross country champion A.J. Acosta ran a PR that both Lananna and he were pleased about afterward.

Zap Fitness' Joe Driscoll won the race.

"You know, Vin told me before the race what he was going to do... and he just told me to sit back and stay relaxed," Acosta said. "Mentally, it was big for me to just be up there and running with guys like (Andrew) Carlson, and those are guys I look up to so it's kind of cool to be up in the race with them and be fighting for it with them."

Lananna agreed with the San Diego-area native's analysis of the race.

"Big pr for him," Lananna said. "He's going to be a big-timer down the road, he just needs to grow into that position."

Oregon picked up an early win from two-time NCAA Championships participant Rachel Yurkovich, who won the javelin, who Lananna said started the meet off right for the Ducks.

"I think a lot of really good stuff happened starting with Rachel Yurkovich in the javelin," Lananna said.

Day two of the Oregon Relays begins tomorrow at 10 a.m. with the high school boys' javelin, and will finish at 6:50 with the high school girls' 4x400m relay. Galen Rupp is expected to race in the invitational mile at 6:32 p.m.

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