Monday, August 22, 2011

Local favorites in the 2011 World Championships

Daegu 2011The next time you're humbled in a local road races, you might allow yourself to reflect that this area is quite a center of athletics. The land and the climate are ideal for training, and more than a few people have taken advantage of it over the years. If you still have doubts, consider the upcoming 2011 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea. No less than eleven athletes who came through Florida State University will be competing for titles there: Jonathan Borlée, Kevin Borlée, Walter Dix, Hannah England, Lacy Janson, Andrew Lemoncello, Ciarán ó Lionáird, Ngonidzashe Makusha, Maurice Mitchell, Barbara Parker, and Kim Williams. A twelfth Seminole, Dorian Scott, was slated to compete for Jamaica in the men's shotput at Daegu, but withdrew from the championships.


Here are the eleven athletes whose road to Daegu took them through Tallahassee:


SarbiJonathan Borlée
Jonathan Borlée will be competing for Belgium in the 400 and in the 4 x 400 relay, the same events he ran at the 2008 (Beijing) Olympic Games and the 2009 (Berlin) World Championships. In Beijing he was part of the relay team that set the national record of 2:59.37 in the 4 x 400 relay. While competing for the Seminoles at the 2009 NCAA Championships, Jonathan won the 400 in a Belgian national record time of 44.78, and was part of FSU's winning 4 x 400 relay with his brother Kevin. In 2010 Jonathan further lowered the Belgian national standard in the 400 to 44.71.


Kevin Borlée
Kevin Borlée will be competing for Belgium in the 400 and in the 4 x 400 relay, the same events he ran at the 2008 (Beijing) Olympic Games and the 2009 (Berlin) World Championships. In Beijing he set a Belgian national record of 44.88 in the 400 and was part of the relay team that set the national record of 2:59.37 in the 4 x 400 relay. Kevin scored for the Seminoles at the 2009 NCAA Championships, finishing fourth in the 400 and competing on FSU's winning 4 x 400 relay.


Walter Dix
Walter Dix will be running in the United States' colors in the 100, the 200, and the 4 x 100 relay. Competing for Florida State from 2004 till his graduation in 2008, Dix was a big part of the Seminoles' three NCAA outdoor track championships in 2006, 2007, and 2008 (Florida State has since vacated the 2007 title). Dix won six NCAA outdoor titles in the four seasons from 2005 to 2008; three in the 200, two in the 100, and one in the 4 x 100. After graduating from FSU in 2008, Dix qualified for the United States Olympic team. At the 2008 (Beijing) Olympics Dix won bronze medals in the 100 (9.91) and the 200 (19.98). Daegu will be his first time competing in a World Championship.


Hannah England
Hannah England will be one of three Seminole alumni competing on Great Britain's team. She's entered in the women's 1500, an event that she won for the Seminoles at the 2008 NCAA Outdoor Championships, running a school record 4:06.19. England is going into the 1500 with a qualifying time of 4:01.89, her career best.
Great Britain, 1500m


Lacy Janson
Lacy Janson (c/o 2006) will compete on the United States team in the women's pole vault. She enters the competition with a season best mark of 4.55 meters, or 14' 11" for those of us who still measure distances in furlongs and lengths in barleycorns. This is Janson's first world championship, but she was the bronze medalist in the pole vault at the World Junior Championship in 2002, and won the NCAA women's indoor title in the pole vault in 2003 and the outdoor title in the same event in 2006.


Andrew Lemoncello
Andrew Lemoncello, the fastest 10,000 runner in Seminole history, will be running the marathon for Great Britain. The Seminole from Scotland previously competed for Great Britain at the 2005 (Helsinki) World Championships in the 3000 steeplechase, at the 2007 (Osaka) World Championships in the 10,000, and the 2008 (Beijing) Olympics in the 3000 steeplechase. He ran his first marathon last year, running 2:13:40 to place eighth at the 2010 London Marathon. Lemoncello's qualifying time for Daegu is 2:15:24.
Great Britain, marathon


Ciarán ó Lionáird
O'Lionáird arrived in Tallahassee last year battling possibly career-ending back trouble. He overcame the injury through therapy in time to lead the Seminoles to a runner-up finish in the 2010 NCAA cross-country championships, Florida State's best-ever showing in that sport. After outdoor season in the spring, where he ran the 5000 and 10000 for the Seminoles, O'Lionáird returned home to Europe. There, he had a breakthrough summer in the middle distances, first turning a 3:57.99 mile in Dublin and then pounding out a 3:34.46 1500 in Oordegem. The latter performance qualified him for Daegu, where O'Lionáird will be running the 1500 for Ireland in his first world championship.


Ngonidzashe Makusha
For his 2011 season alone, Ngoni Makusha may be the most decorated athlete in Seminole track-and-field history. After winning the long jump indoors, Makusha headed outdoors where he won NCAA titles in the 100 (setting a 9.89 NCAA record) and the long jump while also showing amazing dexterity with the relay baton while running on the Seminoles' championship 4 x 100. In recognition of his accomplishments, the Atlantic Coast Conference named Makusha its Athlete of the Year, and the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association voted him 2011 men's track athlete of the year. And it's not over yet; Makusha is also the front runner for the 2011 Bowerman Award, often described as "track and field's Heisman." In Daegu Makusha will be competing in the 100 and the long jump for Zimbabwe. This is his second trip to the world championships; Makusha also competed for Zimbabwe in the 2009 (Berlin) World Championships as well as the 2008 (Beijing) Olympic Games, where he placed fourth in the men's long jump.


Maurice Mitchell
Maurice Mitchell ran his career best 20.19 in the 200 this past April, on his way to making the United States team in that event. He won the 200 at the 2011 NCAA Outdoor Championships for the Seminoles, running 19.99 (wind aided). Mitchell was also part of the Florida State foursome that won the 2011 NCAA 4 x 100. Finally, Mitchell is the only Seminole in Daegu who will be back in garnet and gold for 2011-12.


Barbara Parker
Barbara Parker (c/o 2007) will be racing for Great Britain in the women's 3000-meter steeplechase, the same event in which she won the Atlantic Coast Conference championship in 2006 while competing for Florida State. Parker also ran the steeplechase at the 2008 (Beijing) Olympics, running 9:51.93 in the semifinal heats. Daegu is her first World Athletics Championship.


Kimberly Williams
Kim Williams (c/o 2011) won three straight NCAA women's indoor triple jump titles (2009, 2010, 2011) as well as NCAA titles in the outdoor triple jump (2009) and outdoor long jump (2009). She was named the NCAA field athlete of the year in 2009. She will be competing for Jamaica in the women's triple jump at Daegu, her second trip to the IAAF World Championships. In the 2009 (Berlin) World Championships she placed eighth in the women's triple jump with a mark of 14.08 meters (46' 2-1/4").


The 2011 World Athletics Championships start on Saturday, 27 August 2011 and continue through Sunday, 4 September 2011. In spite of Tallahassee and the Trouble Afoot! area being a center of athletics excellence, Comcast doesn't carry Universal Sports, the network that will be covering Daegu 2011. If you do manage to view the telecast somehow, below is a schedule of when the "Magnificent Eleven" are slated to compete. The times listed for the events are the local time for Daegu, which is thirteen hours ahead of Eastern Time. If you're not particularly fond of doing base-twelve arithmetic in your head, I've included a Daegu clock below the schedule.


27 August
10:35AM Semifinal round, women's 3000-meter steeplechase (Parker)
12:55PM Opening round, men's 100 meters (Dix, Makusha)
9:45PM Quarterfinal round, men's 100 meters (Dix, Makusha)

28 August
9:30AM Qualifying round, women's pole vault (Janson)
10:40AM Opening round, women's 1500 meters (England)
11:15AM Opening round, men's 400 meters (Borlée, Borlée)
6:30PM Semifinal round, men's 100 meters (Dix, Makusha)
8:45PM Finals, men's 100 meters (Dix, Makusha)

29 August
8:00PM Semifinal round, men's 400 meters (Borlée, Borlée)

30 August
11:20 AM Opening round, men's 1500 meters (ó Lionáird)
11:45 AM Qualifying round, women's triple jump (Williams)
7:05 PM Final, women's pole vault (Janson)
8:35 PM Semifinal round, women's 1500 meters (England)
9:20 PM Finals, women's 3000-meter steeplechase (Parker)
9:45 PM Finals, men's 400 meters (Borlée, Borlée)

1 September
11:35 AM Qualifying round, men's long jump (Makusha)
12:30 PM Opening round, men's 4 x 400 (Borlée, Borlée)
7:20 PM Final, women's triple jump (Williams)
7:55 PM Semifinal round, men's 1500 meters (ó Lionáird)
8:55 PM Finals, women's 1500 meters (England)

2 September
11:10 AM Opening round, men's 200 meters (Dix, Mitchell)
7:20 PM Finals, men's long jump (Makusha)
7:55 PM Semifinal round, men's 200 meters (Dix, Mitchell)
9:15 PM Finals, men's 4 x 400 (Borlée, Borlée)

3 September
7:55 PM Finals, men's 400 meters (Borlée, Borlée)
8:15 PM Finals, men's 1500 meters (ó Lionáird)
9:20 PM Finals, men's 200 meters (Dix, Mitchell)

4 September
9:00 AM Final, men's marathon (Lemoncello)
7:00 PM Semifinal round, men's 4 x 100 relay (Dix, Makusha)
9:00 PM Final, men's 4 x 100 relay (Dix, Makusha)

Current time in Daegu:


UPDATE, 25 AUGUST 2011: Athletics Weekly is reporting via twitter that Andrew Lemoncello has withdrawn from the Great Britain team because of an injury.


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Posted by Herb Wills at 9:38 PM
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