Eugene didn’t get the nickname “Track Town USA” without good reason, as evidenced by the World Track and Field Championships currently being held in Moscow.
On Sunday, Nick Symmonds (a member of Eugene’s Oregon Track Club Elite) finished second in the 800-meter semifinals, easily getting him into the finals. Although qualifying for the finals was undoubtedly Symmonds’ biggest goal, he was still unbelievably close to winning the semifinal. His time of 1:45:00 was just 0:01 seconds behind the leading time posted by Djibouti’s Ayanleh Souleiman. Despite the photo finish, Symmonds didn’t seem too upset over the outcome.
“I am so ecstatic the way it is shaping up,” Symmonds told reporters after the race. “Today I felt really smooth going through the gears there. … I feel like I am ready to run 1:43. I need to prove I can win a medal.”
Symmonds, 29, has finished fifth in both the 2011 world championships and the 2012 Olympics, so winning a medal in these 2013 world championships would be a tremendous breakthrough considering how close he is come to attaining it. He will get his chance on Tuesday when the 800-meter final is scheduled to take place.
A pair of Oregon-based runners competed in the finals of the women’s 10,000 meters on Sunday, but they didn’t finish as well as they were hoping. Shalane Flanagan (from Portland) finished in eighth place after leading the first 3,00o meters, and former Oregon runner Jordan Hasay finished in 12th.
“I felt like I tried to stay with that main pack,” Hasay said after the race, “but then every lap I was just kind of on the edge, and it made me relax a little bit, maybe a little too much.”
Another female runner from Oregon didn’t experience nearly as much disappointment during her event. English Gardner, a former UO sprinter, ran the fastest 100 meters of any woman in the preliminary round. In fact, she was the only runner to break 11 seconds, with a time of 10.94. She told reporters how great she felt, something she hasn’t experienced in quite some time.
“Finally … the lion got let out of the cage and I went out there and had some fun,” she said.
Gardner went on to run in the 100-meter finals — held on Monday — and was fractions of a second away from earning a spot on the medal stand. She ended up in fourth place, just .03 seconds away from winning bronze.