Those four words never get old and we've been able to say them a lot this year. Amanda ran another strong prelim race at the US Championships and qualified for Saturday's 1500 meter final. As one of only three collegians to qualify for the race it shows the quality of that event in the US. She ran 4:15.54 to capture the final spot. That is her sixth race with a time of 4:15 or faster in the last eight weeks. Her slowest time of the year in that event is 4:20 in the prelim round at Pac-12's, which was an easy effort.
Saturday's final will be televised on Universal Sports Channel at 4:45p (CDT). Check with your local cable provider regarding your channel lineup:)
If I can get pics from the prelims I'll post them asap. I hope this season never ends!
Friday, June 21, 2013
Thursday, June 20, 2013
We made it to Des Moines and the US Championships. In usual Amanda fashion she has made another new friend. 2012 Olympic 400 Meter Gold Medallist, Sanya Richards-Ross, happened to be checking in at the same time as us. After a short introduction and a photo op you'd have thought these two were old friends. They chatted about bunions and commencement speeches among other topics.
Semi final race is today at 4:40p local time. Go to www.usatf.org for video link and results. This meet tends to place a little more emphasis on time than the NCAA meet does in regard to qualifying. Therefore, the advancement rules are top three in each heat and then the next six times.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Triplets!!!
I apologize for posting this great news so late. It was a busy week last week. I have trying to obtain some great photos (which I have seen, just haven't received permission to download yet) from the NCAA Championships.
In case you missed it...Amanda closed out her collegiate career by finishing third at the NCAA Championships in the 1500 meter race. Her semifinal was tightly bunched, but she calmly placed fifth (automatic advancement) and moved into the final.
In the final she was about as aggressive as I've ever seen her. With 900m to go she moved from seventh to second by literally jumping from the rail to lane two. She stayed near the lead through 300m to go when the packed tightened back up as the readied for a big stretch sprint home. With 200m to go she was in fifth but trapped on the rail again and everyone was bumping and banging or as Harry Hogg would say "Rubbin' is Racin'. Amanda held her ground and the inside line down the final 100m and was able to beat all but two for her third First Team All American honor this year. (14th in XC, 5th in the indoor mile).
First Team AA honors (top 40 in xc, top eight in both indoor and outdoor track) in the same academic year in all three sports is an extremely rare accomplishment. I believe there were only five athletes in the entire NCAA who did that this year. The other four were all long distance gals (3,000 meters and up). Amanda was the only "middle distance" runner to do it. There are numerous "land mines" that can sidetrack this effort from illness to injury to stress. Amanda mostly avoided those issues or if she did have to deal with them it was not at championship time.
Up next: Amanda will likely be competing in the 1500 meter race at the USA Championships on Thursday (and Saturday if she qualifies for the final). The top three at this meet will represent the US at the World Championships later this summer.
I'll post pics from the NCAA as soon as I receive them.
In case you missed it...Amanda closed out her collegiate career by finishing third at the NCAA Championships in the 1500 meter race. Her semifinal was tightly bunched, but she calmly placed fifth (automatic advancement) and moved into the final.
In the final she was about as aggressive as I've ever seen her. With 900m to go she moved from seventh to second by literally jumping from the rail to lane two. She stayed near the lead through 300m to go when the packed tightened back up as the readied for a big stretch sprint home. With 200m to go she was in fifth but trapped on the rail again and everyone was bumping and banging or as Harry Hogg would say "Rubbin' is Racin'. Amanda held her ground and the inside line down the final 100m and was able to beat all but two for her third First Team All American honor this year. (14th in XC, 5th in the indoor mile).
First Team AA honors (top 40 in xc, top eight in both indoor and outdoor track) in the same academic year in all three sports is an extremely rare accomplishment. I believe there were only five athletes in the entire NCAA who did that this year. The other four were all long distance gals (3,000 meters and up). Amanda was the only "middle distance" runner to do it. There are numerous "land mines" that can sidetrack this effort from illness to injury to stress. Amanda mostly avoided those issues or if she did have to deal with them it was not at championship time.
Up next: Amanda will likely be competing in the 1500 meter race at the USA Championships on Thursday (and Saturday if she qualifies for the final). The top three at this meet will represent the US at the World Championships later this summer.
I'll post pics from the NCAA as soon as I receive them.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Just a Hangin'
There is yet a new social media opportunity thanks to Google. Someone has to be the guinea pig at Utah, so it might as well be us. See the release below and please help us make it successful by sending a question.
Utah Athletics will host its first-ever Google+ hangout on Monday, June 3 at noon MDT with Amanda Mergaert of the track and field team and head coach Kyle Kepler. Mergaert, a senior All-American in both cross country and track, has qualified for the NCAA Championships in the 1,500 meters for a third-consecutive year.
The hangout will be shown live on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/uathletics/videos) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/uathletics). We invite fans to submit questions via twitter with the hashtag #utehangout.
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