Tigers Prepare For The USATF Championships
6/18/2003 12:00:00 AM | Track & Field
June 18, 2003
Live Results
COLUMBIA, Mo. - After a week in which 11 Tigers placed in the top 20 at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Sacramento, Calif., members of the Missouri track and field team now have traveled two-and-a-half hours down the road for Palo Alto, Calif., and Stanford University for the USATF Junior & Senior Championships. Five Tigers hit a qualifying mark earlier in the year to qualify them for the Nationals which is held in conjunction with the Junior National meet where two freshman Tigers will compete.
Of the five who are eligible for Nationals, three are going to compete in the shot put event. Those who qualified include seven-time All-American Christian Cantwell (Eldon, Mo.). Cantwell finished his career as national runner-up in the shot put, threw a personal best and broke the Missouri record in the process after throwing the shot 70 feet, 9 inches on his next-to-last throw of the finals. Russ Bell (Jefferson City, Mo.), a four-time All-American, placed in the top 20 last week at the NCAA Championships in the shot put and discus and will join Cantwell in the competition. Junior Janae Strickland (Houston, Texas), an indoor All-American shot put thrower, will contend with the best females once again.
Two more who have ended their careers as Tigers and qualified for Nationals are Timothy Dunne and Fiona Asigbee. Timothy Dunne (Jerome, Idaho) will compete in the 800-meter run after qualifying with a personal best time of 1:47.39 in the NCAA Championships. Dunne also earned an All-America distinction as a result. He will have to get through two rounds to reach the finals; the first round starts on Thursday. Former Mizzou student-athlete and current Missouri track and field volunteer assistant Derrick Peterson will compete with Dunne in the race. Peterson's qualifying time (1:47.37) was two-hundredths of a second faster that Dunne.
Fiona Asigbee (Walford, Iowa) will compete in the heptathlon, an event she won at the Big 12 Championships.
Two freshman Tigers, Ashley Patten and Jessica Stockard, will contend in the US Junior Nationals. To qualify, a person must be under the age of 19 and meet a certain performance standard. Jessica Stockard (Godfrey, Ill.) will be competing in the heptathlon after finishing 20th in the nation last week. Bennett's teammate Ashley Patten (Clarkston, Mich.) will run in the 800-meter race. Patten finished second in the event at the Big 12 Championships.
Coverage of the USATF Championships can be seen on NBC starting Saturday at 3 p.m. (central time) and on Sunday on ESPN2 at 3 p.m. (central time).
For complete coverage, visit our website at www.mutigers.com. There you can find links to live results and more information about the competitors.
