TOKYO – At this morning’s first session of track & field action at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, thirteen Team USATF athletes advanced to the next round of their events. Taking place a year after its originally scheduled date due to the Games’ postponement, competing athletes eagerly took to the stadium ready to represent their country.
On demand coverage of Thursday’s (Eastern
Men’s 3,000m steeplechase heats
Mason Ferlic (Ann Arbor, Michigan / USATF Michigan) tucked in near the back of the pack in the first heat before moving up to 10th with five laps remaining. In eighth with two to go, Ferlic still had a sizable gap to make up on the front seven. Making a push over the final 150m, Ferlic caught Djilali Bedrani of France at the line but was .003 behind and ended up eighth in 8:20.23 as the heat was the fastest in Olympic history by far. Lamecha Girma of Ethiopia, the world leader in 2021, clocked 8:09.83, more than five seconds faster than the previous Games' best for a heat.
In heat two, with only the top three assured of a spot in the final, Benard Keter (Colorado Springs, Colorado / USATF Colorado) was seventh early on and then surged forward into third with three laps left. Falling back one spot to fourth over the penultimate water jump, Keter was fifth at the bell and lost contact as he dropped back one more spot on the final go-around, but he came away with a lifetime best 8:17.31 in sixth. His mark held up to make him the last time qualifier for the final.
Seventh at Rio and eighth at Doha in 2019, Trials champion Hillary Bor (Colorado Springs, Colorado / USATF Colorado) led the three U.S. entrants coming in with an 8:14.69 season best. Bor stayed close to the rail in second or third for much of the first six laps before striding into the lead with 600m left. With the pace the slowest of all three heats, Bor knew he needed to finish in the top three to advance, but he was relegated to fourth after the final water jump and then on the run in he faded to sixth in 8:19.80 and missed out on the final.
Women’s 800m 1st round
World’s fastest woman in 2021 and holder of the American U20 record after winning the Trials in 1:56.07, Athing Mu (Trenton, New Jersey / USATF New Jersey) took heat three through 400m in 62.09, almost pedestrian for a world-class field. Mu was jostled and pushed with 200 to go as she was second behind Habitam Alemu of Ethiopia so she turned up the pace a bit down the stretch to win in 2:01.10 and secure her semifinal berth.
Doha silver medalist Raevyn Rogers (Houston, Texas / USATF Gulf) was boxed in in fifth after 200m in the fourth heat and passed the halfway mark in just over 62 seconds. Over the next half lap she moved out to a safer position and assumed the lead coming off the final bend. Rogers held off Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson to win in 2:01.42 and move on.
The sixth and final heat featured American record holder and two-time World Championships bronze medalist Ajee' Wilson (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania / USATF Mid-Atlantic). Wilson was third at the bell and then dropped back two places down the backstretch. A hard sprint over the last 100m placed her second just behind Britain’s Jemma Reekie in 2:00.02 to claim a semifinal spot.
Men’s 400m Hurdles 1st round
More of a formality than a real test, the first round saw all three U.S. entrants advance automatically to the semis. Kenny Selmon (Mableton, Georgia / USATF Georgia) was two strides behind Jamaica’s Jaleel Hyde through most of the second heat and that was the order at the finish line as Hyde won in 48.54 and Selmon advanced easily in 48.61.
Closing down on the third-place man over the final 50m in heat four, David Kendziera (Chapel Hill, North Carolina / USATF North Carolina) finished fourth in 49.23 to claim an automatic qualifying berth in the next round. Treating it more like a practice trot than a heat at the Olympic Games, Rai Benjamin (Mount Vernon, New York / USATF New York) expended very little energy in winning the final section in 48.60, the fourth-fastest time overall.
Women’s 100m 1st round
Running next to Britain’s world 200m champion Dina Asher-Smith in the first heat, Teahna Daniels (Austin, Texas / USATF Texas Southern) made up ground on Asher-Smith over the first half of the race and edged ahead in the last 20m to win in 11.04.
Safe out of the blocks in the third heat, Javianne Oliver (Clermont, Florida / USATF Florida) ran in second place throughout the race to clock 11.15 and advance. Closing out the first session, Jenna Prandini (Pflugerville, Texas / USATF Central California) matched her season best in the seventh heat with an 11.11 to place third in heat seven and move on automatically.
Men’s High Jump qualifying
Two of the three Team USATF competitors qualified for the final after clearing 2.28m/7-5.75 on their first attempts, but both men had misses early. Trials champion JuVaughn Harrison (Baton Rouge, Louisiana / USATF Southern), the first American man since 1912 to qualify for the high jump and long jump at the Olympics, missed his first try at 2.25m/7-4.5, while Shelby McEwen (Abbeville, Mississippi / USATF Southern) missed once at the opening height of 2.17m/7-1.5 and twice at 2.21m/7-3 before settling down and clearing the next two heights first time.
Darryl Sullivan (Marion, Tennessee / USATF Tennessee) cleared the opening height on his second attempt, but missed three times at 2.21m/7-3 and did not qualify for the final.
Men’s Discus qualifying
A solid series of throws topped by a season best 63.74m/209-1 in round two put Sam Mattis (East Brunswick, New Jersey / USATF New York) in sixth after the first group and he ended up eighth overall to earn a spot in the final, the only Team USATF man to do so.
Reggie Jagers (Chula Vista, California / USATF Inland Northwest) had a best of 61.47m/201-8 on his final throw in section two, and Mason Finley (Overland Park, Kansas / USATF Missouri Valley) hit 60.34m/197-11 after two fouls.
Full session results are available on the World Athletics website. The next session starts at 6:00 A.M. ET with Women’s 5,000m qualifying round. Fans in the U.S. can watch here via NBC properties.
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USATF Statistician
Photo credit: World Athletics
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