Freshman Beckford shines at outdoor track and field championship

Freshman
Beckford shines at outdoor track and field championship
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BY CHRIS LARSON
Special to the Rice News

Rice’s women’s
track and field team had something to prove at the NCAA
Outdoor Track and Field Championships May 30 through June
2 in Eugene, Ore.

The team dominated
the Western Athletic Conference outdoor championships May
17-19 in Fresno, Calif., to earn its fourth consecutive
conference title. But the Owls were hungry to make a mark
on the national level, especially after a disappointing
performance in March’s NCAA Indoor Championships, where
they placed 31st.

By the time
the Owls left Oregon, however, there was no doubt that the
team had established itself as one of the nation’s
premier track and field teams, with freshman sensation Allison
Beckford leading the way. Rice scored 26 points, more than
the team ever has in the 20 years it has competed at the
NCAA outdoor meet, to finish a best-ever ninth overall in
the team standings. Rice was the top team from Texas, marking
the first time the Owls have finished ahead of powerhouse
University of Texas, which has won three national championships
and owns nine top-five finishes. The Longhorns finished
10th with 25 points.

“It’s
the culmination of a great season for a great team,”
head coach Victor Lopez said. “I just like the fact
that Rice is Rice, and we’re able to compete with all
these teams and all their resources. Even as a highly academic
school, we’re right there with them. It can be done.”

Beckford certainly
proved Rice’s ability to compete, with her second-place
effort in the 400-meter hurdles and a win in the 400-meter
dash, Rice’s first-ever national championship in an
individual running event. After posting the fastest qualifying
time in the semifinals of the 400, a career-best 51.50 seconds,
Beckford took the national title in 52.33, facing a stiff
wind.

“I really
wanted to get out fast and stay in contact,” Beckford
said. “At the 200-meter mark I felt the wind, and it
was really hard to keep going. The wind was so strong, and
I felt like stopping, but I couldn’t. I just had to
keep running, and then I realized I had it.”

Beckford defeated
Mikele Barber, a junior from South Carolina who was the
alternate for the United States’ 1,600-meter relay
at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and came into the outdoor
championship with the nation’s top time but finished
fourth. Barber’s teammate, junior Demetria Washington,
advanced to the semifinals of the U.S. Olympic Trials in
the 400 but had to settle for second at the NCAA meet as
she couldn’t run Beckford down.

“She ran
a perfect race,” Lopez said. “She ran the first
200 in 24.2, just like we planned, and I told her at the
top of the curve to make sure she was in contact, race tall,
use her sprinting mechanics and show her stride and come
home.”

Beckford just
missed earning the distinction of being the only woman to
win two individual titles at the meet as she came in second
in the 400-meter hurdles, her favorite event. Beckford qualified
for the finals with the fastest time, but a slow start and
a stutter on the final hurdle kept her from catching Harvard
University’s Brenda Taylor. Still, Beckford’s
18 points were more than any other woman earned in individual
events.

The ambitious
plan to compete in both events meant four races in four
days for Beckford against the nation’s toughest competition.
All four races covered 400 meters, traditionally thought
to be the toughest race in all of track and field because
to be successful, an athlete must be at near-sprint speed
throughout the entire race. Beckford, however, said she
wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s
difficult, but I trained for this,” she said. “I
run back-to-back all the time in practice, and I run 500s
and hills and long distance, so running the 400 is much
easier than practice.”

Sophomore Alice
Falaiye earned Rice’s other eight points with a second-place
finish in the long jump, improving her third-place effort
at the NCAA indoor meet. Her best leap of 21 feet, 1 inch
was short of her personal best of 21-9, but she knows second
place at the national meet is nothing to be ashamed of.

“It helps
the team for me to come here and score points,” she
said. “They say that nationals is an individual event,
but it’s also a team thing. We came here knowing we
can place really well if everyone does what they can do.
I came here for myself, but also for the team.”

Also competing
for the Owls in Eugene were sophomore Tanya Wright and junior
Aimee Teteris in the 800-meter run as well as Rice relay
squads in the 400- and 1,600-meter relays, but none advanced
to the finals of their respective events. Wright had the
eighth-fastest time in the 800, but a qualification procedure
that ensures that the top two finishers in each heat advance
to the finals squeezed her out. In the 1,600-meter relay,
a flawed handoff between seniors Kele Anderson and Keisha
Robertson likely cost the Owls a spot in the finals.

“As for
the relay, it’s not always the fastest eight that make
it, it’s the luckiest eight,” said Teteris, who
ran the third leg of the 1,600-meter relay. “It depends
on so many things, especially at a meet like this, and today
one thing was off.”

On the men’s
side, all three Owls finished higher than they were seeded
on the performance list heading into the meet. Rice captured
an all-America honor as freshman Adam Davis finished ninth
in the 800-meter run but was among the top eight Americans.
Davis advanced in the field impressively at the end of his
heat, but his time of 1:48.50 missed advancing to the finals
by just .05 seconds.

“During
the race I took out a little slow,” he said. “That
was kind of the idea because I wanted to stay as relaxed
as possible in the beginning so I could finish strong. I
was at the back for most of the race until the end. I started
to kick, and I passed a few people as I came into the finish
and ran a pretty good time. If I could change something
about the race, I would have started my move a little sooner,
and I might have been able to put myself into position to
run a faster time and make the finals.

Sophomore Tommy
Oleksy advanced to the finals of the long jump, where he
finished ninth. Sophomore Ryan Harlan had a magical run
through the decathlon, opening the second day of competition
by posting the field’s fastest mark in the 110-meter
hurdles and a personal-best 25-3 discus throw, after which
he sat in third place. Slightly subpar efforts in the javelin
and 1,500-meter run resulted in an 11th-place overall finish,
but Harlan’s performance was certainly still more than
almost anyone expected from someone who qualified for the
NCAA meet at his last meet and was seeded just 18th of the
19 invited athletes heading into the championship.

“Ryan’s
performance was really impressive because of a number of
factors,” men’s head coach Jon Warren said. “He
only began training in January. He hurt his foot in April
of 2000 and had surgery on it in September. These two factors
prevented him from doing any fitness training and meant
that he was only able to work a little on technique. His
training since January has focused on his two worst events,
the discus and the pole vault, not fitness. The NCAA meet
for Ryan started only 10 days after the WAC meet. That is
not nearly enough time to recover and then perform at your
best in the decathlon.”

Both the men’s
and women’s teams promise that they weren’t one-hit
wonders at this year’s meets. In fact, both teams are
young — the only NCAA qualifiers Rice will lose are
women sprinters Keisha Robertson and Kele Anderson —
and expect to make another jump in the standings next year.
In all, six of the nine Owls in Oregon were freshmen or
sophomores, and each hopes to use his or her experience
at the national meet as a springboard to even more success.

“It’s
my first time at the outdoor national meet,” Oleksy
said. “I’ll be back. I’m looking forward
to next year.”

— Chris
Larson is a sports writer for the Rice Thresher.