Title: Masters at the Trials
Tags: track javelin racewalking
Blog Entry: Jeff Hartwig has company. Exactly a week after pole vaulter Hartwig made the U.S. Olympic team at age 40, a New Hampshire race walker won the 20-kilometer event Sunday in Eugene, Ore., at age 44 -- becoming the oldest American on the track team bound for Beijing. Joanne Dow won the 12.4-mile walk by beating her rival (and friend) Teresa Vaill, 45. Tears flowed as Dow finished the race, realizing her Olympic dream after 12 years of frustration and disappointment. "There was a really large crowd at the start/finish line and they were really loud and supportive the whole race, but the last few laps it started to get to me and I started to cry," Dow told Mark Gosztyla of her hometown Manchester Union-Leader, "but then Hop (coach Rob Hoppler) yelled to me, 'Don't start hyperventilating on me now!' and I was able to keep the emotions in check until after I finished." Dow took 1 hour, 35 minutes and 11 seconds to complete the road circuit in Eugene. Even though she lacks the Olympic "A" qualifying standard of 1:33, she made the team as the top finisher with the secondary "B'' qualifying standard -- the way many Third World teams are able to send athletes to the Games. Second place went to Vaill, who holds the American record, and turned 45 last November. Newspapers in Maine and New Hampshire celebrated Dow's achievement. Four years ago in Sacramento, Dow finished behind Vaill at the Trials after having met the Olympic "A'' standard of 1:33:30 -- but was kept out of the Olympics because a third walker in the race had not attained the "A" standard. The rule later was changed, establishing a "B'' standard time of 1:38. "I call it the 'Joanne Dow' rule,'' she told a reporter with a laugh. What made her Sunday stroll extra-special was her family's presence. Witnesses included her husband, Tim, 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, and 16-year-old son, Tim Jr. "This win was for them as much as it was for me,'' Dow told reporters. "A lot of tears were shed afterward because my family went through this whole thing with me for nearly 14 years.'' Tim Dow called the experience "a dream come true for Joanne. She sacrificed so much and today all our prayers to God were answered.'' Another dream was realized by an even older athlete: Roald Bradstock, 46. A two-time Olympic javelin thrower for Britain who became a U.S. citizen in 1995, Bradstock of Marietta, Ga., was on pins and needles for weeks. He didn't learn that he had made the 26-member Trials field until a little after 10 a.m. last Wednesday, when he received a phone call that USA Track & Field had listed him as "qualified" and "declared" on its Web site for official entrants. Two days later, Bradstock threw in the men's javelin preliminaries -- and beat eight younger men with a final throw of 225 feet, 5 inches. Among his victims was Breaux Greer, the American record holder, who went into the meet with a shoulder injury. Beyond his remarkable performance, Bradstock gained worldwide attention for his change of uniforms during the event. He threw three times -- in three different, hand-painted uniforms. He also had a different javelin for each try. As Jere Longman reported in The New York Times: "He changed his Lycra outfit for each of his three tosses, variously sporting zebra tights; the five colors of the Olympic rings; and the red, white and blue of the American flag, even if stocky javelin throwers might be advised to avoid horizontal stripes. To accessorize, Bradstock threw color-coordinated, pop-art javelins." "I see this as an artistic way to communicate with younger people," Bradstock told a scrum of a dozen reporters in the press tent. "In order to go viral on YouTube, it needs to be something sexual, violent or bizarre. The first one, I'm not going to do. Bizarre, I've got that tanked." (Bradstock posts videos of himself throwing golf balls, iPods and whatnot.) And even if a trip to China wasn't at stake, a total of 24 Masters athletes competed in exhibition events at the Trials -- 16 men over 40 in the 3,000-meter run and eight women over 40 in the 200-meter dash. In the sprint, Donna Lawrence, a 40-year-old from Austin, Texas, came from behind in the last 10 meters to edge world indoor champion Renee Henderson, 43, of Merchantville, N.J., 25.79 to 25.98 in a race witnessed by thousands at Hayward Field. M45 world record miler Tony Young, 46, of Redmond, Wash., won the wind-buffeted 3K (a half-lap short of 2 miles) in 8:47.17 -- more than 7 seconds ahead of Andrew Duncan of Nevada. But No. 3 was perhaps the happiest medalist: Damian Baldovino. A resident of Lakeview, Ore., Baldovino finished in a personal best 8:56.35 seconds -- in only his third track meet since running for Medford High School in the mid-1980s. "That was cool," Baldovino told his local paper. "I never even went to college, so for me, this was just huge. I was never in an NCAA meet or anything."
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