Indoor Champs a sellout

USA Indoor Championships a sell-out

Returning to New York for the first time since 1993, the USA Indoor Track & Field Championships have sold out tickets for the two-day event.

The Championships will be held Friday and Saturday, March 1 and 2, at the Armory Track & Field Center on 168th Street in New York City. The meet will be broadcast nationally from 4-5:30 p.m. Eastern Time on ESPN on Sunday, March 3.

More than 8,000 fans, half of whom are expected to be high-school students and coaches, will attend the Championships over their two-day run at the Armory. The future site of the National Track & Field Hall of Fame, the Armory is the premiere site for high school indoor track and field in the nation.

After an initial meet at Madison Square Garden in 1999, the USA Indoor Track & Field Championships were held primarily in the New York, at Madison Square Garden, from 1906 until 1993. The meet was held in Atlanta from 1994-2001.

Atlantans ready for New York

Two athletes based in the Atlanta area are happy to be making the trek to New York to pursue national titles at the 2002 Indoor Track & Field Championships.

Two-time Olympic 100m gold medalist and three-time world champion 100m hurdler Gail Devers will compete in the 60 meters for the first time since 1999. Fellow Georgia resident Adam Nelson, the 2000 Olympic silver medalist in the shot put, will defend his U.S. shot put title in New York.

Devers, for one, is happy to commute to New York.

“I think a great move on the part of USA Track & Field is to bring this back to New York,” Devers told Runners World Online after a USA Track & Field press conference Wednesday afternoon. “I know it's for indoors, and I'm hoping they'll do something for outdoors.”

Nelson trained at Manhattan College for part of 2001 before relocating to the Atlanta area, where he graduated from Lovett High School in 1993.

“I’m really excited about the opportunity to compete in New York,” Nelson said. “I’ve got a lot of really good friends there. I think it’s going to be a solid competition.”

Nelson will compete in the SoBe men’s shot put at 5:30 p.m. Friday at the Armory. Devers will compete Saturday in the women’s 60m, with the final slated for 5:04 p.m.

All results, all the time

Be sure to visit the USATF Web site, www.usatf.org, for live results from this weekend’s Indoor Track & Field Championships!

UNC To Host USATF Men’s Indoor Heptathlon Championships

The University of North Carolina will host the 2002 USA Track & Field Men's Indoor Heptathlon Championships March 1-2 at the Eddie Smith Fieldhouse in Chapel Hill. Seventeen athletes, including NCAA champions and Olympians, will compete in seven events over the two-day contest.

Athletes scheduled to compete include 2000 Olympian and NCAA Champion Tom Pappas, defending U.S. decathlon champion Kip Janvrin, and Steve Moore, last season’s Division II decathlon champion. UNC All-America decathlete Michael Cvelbar, 2001 NCAA decathlon runner-up Steve Harris and decathlon All-America Andy Greisler also will compete.

Remember When - 1987 USA Indoor Championships

Of all the records set at the USA Indoor Track and Field Championships, probably none was more unexpected than Mike Conley’s triple jump mark at the1987 Championships in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Feb. 27.

The competition was held in the afternoon session and there was an outstanding field that included indoor world record holder Oleg Protsenko of Russia, 1984 Olympic champion Al Joyner and Conley, now USATF’s Director of Elite Athlete Programs. Conditions for great jumping were less than ideal since both the triple jump runway and pit were shorter than outdoor standards because of the tight Garden track. “I had to shorten my run from 148 to 120 feet,” Conley remembered.

Although Protsenko set the world mark on Jan. 15, 1987, Conley took the early lead in the competition. Protsenko seemingly won the competition with a sixth jump of 57-7.75 (17.57m). Thinking he had won, Protsenko packed his equipment and left the Garden. “That made me mad,” said Conley, who still had one jump left.

On that last jump, Conley popped out to 58-3.25 (17.76m), breaking Protsenko’s world record of 57-11.75 (17.67m). “That jump came out of nowhere,” Conley said. “In the air, I was afraid of landing out of the pit.”

That mark became the first officially accepted IAAF world indoor triple jump record and lasted almost seven years. It is still the American indoor record.