The 16-year-old will be the youngest track athlete to compete for Team USA in the Olympics in Rio.
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Olympic champion Allyson Felix has failed to make the U.S. team for Rio in her favourite event, the 200 meters, as her dreams for a rare sprint double ended at the American trials.
“I learned not to get my head down about things”, she said of her first Olympic trials experience.
I just want to say thank you to everyone who encouraged me through this whole journey, Ostrander said. Felix qualified last weekend for the 400, but had been dealing with a sore right ankle and could not make it in her signature event. After landing awkwardly on an exercise ball while doing core work, she rolled her right ankle.
For what seemed like an eternity Sunday there was a blank spot on the Hayward Field scoreboard where the name of the third-place finisher of the women’s 200 meters should have been.
The 30-year-old, the reigning Olympic 200m champion, finished fourth in 22.54sec, just edged out of a top three spot by Jenna Prandini in 22.53. “But it got the job done”.
“If we put Gabby in regimented training with daily planning and daily assignments and training plans, she’ll see improvement just like we did a year ago”, Karolyi said.
McLaughlin, whose father tempted her into track and field as a six year old with the promise of giving her chocolate bars, said she was thinking of junk food as she powered to the line in Sunday’s 400m hurdles final.
Molly Huddle finished well ahead of the pack to win the 5,000 meters. Isinbayeva beat out Suhr in 2008 for her second straight Olympic gold, before taking bronze in the London Games that Suhr won.
This year, she made a decision to try for a different double in the 200 and 400.
“I think we can all get better”, Biles said. She finished third in the 5,000.
The Rio Olympic Games 2016 track & field competition is scheduled to begin August 12 and run through August 21.
Leonel Manzano, the silver medalist in 2012, finished fourth and did not make the team.
Former Michigan All-American Jeff Porter took third in a photo finish in the men’s 110-meter hurdles Saturday night to earn a spot in next month’s Rio Olympics.
“I’m going to do the best I can”, she told the news site prior to her qualification to the US Olympic Team. “The constant pick-up of the entire race was really hard for me to keep up with, and in the end, I just didn’t quite have the legs for it”. You know, I don’t get paid for this.
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►Erik Kynard, who claimed a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics in London, will have a chance to upgrade that in Rio next month. “It wasn’t just my family, teammates, coaches and friends, it was also people around town, people sending me Twitter and Facebook messages and people yelling encouraging words as I ran by”.
