Want Records? I Got 'Em!

Millrose was supposed to be the main attraction of the week!
And it produced!
But so did several other venues--and athletes!
I have a mountain of material, so let's go to The Armory!

That Women's 800!
In a sensational race, Ajee Wilson followed the rabbit through a 57.4 first 400, with Charlene Lipsey right behind, and even HS'er Sammy Watson at 58.2.
The train continued through a quick 600 in the 1:27's, with Watson at 1:29, and not dying.
It was a tight race for the front pair, but stoic & steady Wilson kept Lipsey heeled.
That fast pace, and the tight race brought home TWO women UNDER the American Record of Nicole Teter, on the books since 2002!

Wilson ran 1:58.27, collecting the Meet Record as well as the AR.
She moves from 11th A-T US to 1st!
The last woman to make the World list was in 2012.
And the only 2 Americans to make that list were Teter and Mary Slaney, who held the 24th spot!
No more!!
Slaney is OFF the World list, her 1:58.9 dating from 1980!
Wilson grabs 13th A-T World!

Lipsey finished strong, timed in 1:58.64, becoming 2nd A-T US, and 19th A-T World!

Far back in 3rd came Lynsey Sharp, then Cecilia Barowski, having a good year!
Her 2:01.52 gave her 23rd A-T US, tied with 1 other!
And she knocked two name vets OFF the list!
Regina Jacobs and Amy Wickus are GONE, Jacobs from 2000, and Wickus from the mid-90's!

And then came Ms Watson!
Watching the race on NBC, the camera focused on the first 2, I sat screaming at my screen---Come on, Sammy, GO!!
And she did, JUST nipping Mary Decker Slaney's venerable, iconic, and most historic HSR of 2:01.8, dating from 1974!!
Her 2:01.78 (WHEW!!) gave her the Senior Class Record as well.
She moves from 3rd to 1st on the A-T HS list!
Her splits were 58.20 and 63.58!

The Millrose Women's Mile was fast too, but so was a Women's Mile the day before at Boston University!!
Let's explore both!

In a totally unexpected race, 3 of the best US distance runners took to BU's track!
At the end, it was Shelby Houlihan's scintellating kick that led to a rewritten Record Book!
Her 4:24.16 defeated Colleen Quigley and Rachel Schneider!
She's 5th A-T US, and 18th A-T World!
Quigley's 4:24.88 makes her 7th A-T US, and 23rd A-T World!
Schneider's 4:25.62--bettering her 4:28.03 PR from last week!--moves her from 20th A-T US to 8th!!
Megan Krumpoch's 4:32.03 was a solid 4th!

And knocked FROM the list is Francie Larrieu, my first female runner crush!!
Her 4:29.5 dated from 1975!!

Now let's see what FURTHER damage the Millrose race did!!

In a race supposedly set up for Shannon Rowbury to again chase the American Record, there were--um--surprises!
First, the pace was off by 2 seconds at the half--2:11 to the wanted 2:09!
Second, new NOP member and Rowbury training partner Sifan Hassan taught Shannon a lesson or two!
Pulling away with over 2 laps to go, Hassan gapped Rowbury, while Kate Grace smelled blood!

Sprinting to tthe tape, Hassan's 4:19.89 made her 4th A-T World!
She also collected the Netherlands National Record, the Millrose Meet Record, and the Age 24 record!

Grace kicked past Rowbury to take 2nd in a BIG PR of 4:22.93.
She got the Age 28 record, while becoming 8th A-T World, and 4th A-T US!!
Rowbury finished in 4:23.05, short of her PR, and AGAIN failing to take down Slaney's iconic standard!

Heather Kampf followed in 4:28.39
Then came Dominique Scott-Erfurd's 4:28.47 National Record of South Africa!!
Kaela Edwards had said in a pre-meet interview that she wanted the Collegiate Record--and she went for it!
But her 4:28.75 wasn't really close, although she moves from  16th A-T Collegiate to 7th!!
Nicole Sifuentes reliably came next, followed by another Collegian, Elinor Purrier!
Purrier's PR of 4:29.44 wasn't enough to move her out of 8th A-T Collegiate!
Alexa Efraimson--one week away from her 20th birthday--ran 4:29.54.

One of my common rants has to do with the failure of timers to time 1500's enroute to Miles!
While Millrose came through, as expected, BU did not!!
Thus, 3 CERTAIN PR's for the 3 BU women mentioned above were lost to history!!
(Unless they suddenly turn up, in which case I'll do my usual mea culpa!!  LOL)
For the Millrose group, however, Hassan's 1500 wasn't a PR.
As told above, Grace kicked past Rowbury late in the race!
So Rowbury had a faster 1500 split--4:04.56--which moves her up one spot on the US list, from 4th to 3rd!
Grace's 4:04.86 gives her 5th A-T US!

Collegiate runners rarely get 1500 splits---or race open 1500's!---so Edwards's 4:11.00 makes her 3rd A-T Collegiate.
Purrier's 4:12.35 split gives her 9th A-T Collegiate!!

In keeping with this post's title's theme, let's see what Genzebe Dibaba has been up to!
Would you believe ANOTHER World Record---this time over the 2000 meters distance!
In what amounted to a solo time trial (2 women finished about 30 seconds back!) in Spain, Dibaba cruised around the track at a steady clip, her 5:23.75 chopping almost 7 seconds from Gabriela Szabo's 5:30.53 WR of 1998!
Her splits were 2:42.65 and 2:41.10 for each kilometer!
(Her time is faster than Sonia O'Sullivan's OUTdoor WR--but let's not get into that!!)
Genzebe gets her own Ethiopian National Record, and the Age 25 record!
In fact, this race took place on her LAST day as a 25 year old!!
She moves from 2nd to 1st on the A-T World list!!

She went after her own 1500 WR too, this time in the IAAF World Tour meet in Torun, Poland.
Well, she WANTED to go after it---but her pacer wasn't up to the task!
Instead, Dibaba had to settle for a mere 3:58.80--which still gave her the Age 26 record!
(She ran that two days after turning 26!)
In second came Axumawit Embaye's 4:04.95!

Two Collegiate Records fell in separate meets!
In the altitude-aided Don Kirby affair in Albuquerque, Hannah Cunliffe sped 60 meters in 7.07 to take down Ramona Burchell's 7.08 from 2015!

I have a little story to go with that!
Seeing the time on Twitter, I instantly noted it was a CR!
(Kiss me--I'm an expert!!  LOL)
BUT---all the tweets I saw---from reputable sources---ALL said it was an "All-Conditions" best!!
They made NO mention of it being an outright Collegiate Record--no strings attached!!
I sent a few tweets to these sources, but to no avail!
That is, until a tweet from TFCCCA (Coaches Association) finally said the same!!
The falsehood emanated from the method TFRSS uses to "convert" times (from flat to banked tracks, and for altitude), where they "assigned" a time of 7.09 to Cunliffe, adding 0.02 to her REAL Collegiate Record!!

Confusion, confusion!!

Cunliffe also gets the Junior Class record, the World-leader, and the Age 21 record!!
She moves from 5th A-T Collegiate, tied with 2 others, to the top!
She also moves from 21st A-T US, tied with 4 others, to 11th, where she's tied with 1 other!
But she wasn't done!
She added a 22.60 200, which makes her 11th A-T Collegiate, tied with 1 other!
She's now 11th A-T US, tied with 1 other!
Ariana Washington was 2nd, her 22.80 making her 24th A-T Collegiate, tied with 1 other.
As well, she's now 22nd A-T US!

The other CR came out of the blue from Jazmin Fray!
In the Clemson meet, Fray--who surprised with that 2:43.15 1000 back in December--ran a solo 2:00.69 to claim the CR for 800 meters!
Second was over 4 seconds back!
Her splits were 58.96 and 61.73!
She also gets the Collegiate Soph Class record, and adds 17th A-T US to her collection of goodies!
Then--about an hour later--she ran a remarkable 51.9 as 3rd leg of her Texas A&M team's 4X400 Relay!
I'd say she has a sub-2:00 in her, wouldn't you??

The Millrose Women's 500 produced another American Record!!
In a 500 that saw the return of Alysia Montano (with flowers on her shoes, as well as in her hair!--she's currently sponsorless!!), Courtney Okolo sped the distance in 1:07.34, making her 3rd A-T World, as best as I can tell!
(I don't have lists for the 500!)
Montano finished in 1:09.55, just ahead of Delilah Muhammad's 1:09.66!
Okolo also gets the Meet Record!

A pair of HSR's fell in field events!
In a "Boy's" PV competition at the Millrose meet, Mondo Duplantis made 18-2.50, 18-8.25, then his latest HSR of 18-10.25 on first tries!
He declined to go further--the 19 foot barrier now less than two inches away!!
(His father Greg's OUTdoor PR is 19-0.25, so we could soon see the first-ever Father-Son combo of 19 footers---even though I never compare INdoor to OUTdoor marks!)
He broke his own HSR, as well as his own Junior Class record, and Age 17 record!!

Tara Davis--also known as a good hurdler and TJ'er--got another "ancient" HSR--this one now previously owned by one Carol Lewis, her LJ mark of 21-7.25 dating from 1981!!
Davis's 21-11 also got Lewis's Senior Class record!!
She moves from 7th A-T HS to 1st.
And she becomes 20th A-T US, tied with 1 other!!
But wait, I'm not finished!!
She also gets a record held by the venerable Heike Drechsler, whose Olympic-sized career of over 20 years is historic to the nth degree!!
Davis took the Age 17 record away from Drechsler!
However, she'll have to improve by a foot to get Drechsler's OUTdoor Age 17 record!
Davis will only have until her 18th birthday on May 20th!!

(PAUSE)

Let me explain a bit what I'm doing here!
I'd WANTED to divide my report into two posts---one entirely for the Millrose meet, the other for all the rest of my pile of great records & marks!
But with this week producing so MANY Records---across the spectrum!---I decided to go with the major records in the first post---this one!---saving all the rest for a second post!!
And that's basically what I'm doing!
Don't fret, though, because what I'll include in my 2nd post will be enough to sate the appetites of starving dieters!!
I'll continue with more records now!

Several Class Records fell---in both the Collegiate and HS realms!

Trey Knight came from the skies to tear apart the HS Frosh Class record in the Weight Throw!
His 71-3.50 added almost 6 feet to the old mark!!

Katelyn Tuohy removed one of Mary Cain's Class Records--in the 1000!
She gets Cain's Frosh Class mark---by about three seconds!!
And becomes 17th A-T HS with her time of 2:47.86!!

Gleb Gudorev continues to amaze!
Remember, he's the dude who came to Kansas State from Europe, and suddenly emerged as a threat to WT'ers everywhere!!
His 76-11 added about 18 inches to his recent PR, breaking his own Frosh Class record!
He moves from 21st A-T Collegiate to 16th!
And he misses the World DDD by less than 5 inches!!

Fred Kerley ran 45.02 for 400 meters in the Clemson meet to nab the Senior Class record, as well as the Age 21 record!!
He's now 4th A-T Collegiate.
He's also 4th A-T US, tied with 1 other!
And he's 5th A-T World, also tied with 1 other!!

Keturah Orji is still two feet shy of her Rio OUTdoor PR, but her 46-3.25 TJ claims the Junior Class record!!
She fell just 0.75 inches shy of her INdoor PR!!

Tyrese Cooper becomes more and more unbelievable every time he steps on a track!!
In his latest attack on the HS record book, he came THIS close to getting the HSR in the 400 meters!!
The 45.92 by Elzie Coleman has been the HSR only since 2004, but it seems much older!!
(Maybe because no one's come closer than 46.57 since then---until Cooper came on the scene!)
Well, now that Cooper has run 46.01--taking 2nd in a race at the Tyson Invite--Coleman's record is on Death Row!!
He gets the Soph Class record, and becomes 2nd A-T HS!!
But this phenom wasn't done!!
Finishing 3rd behind super vet Wallace Spearmon, Cooper ran the 200 in 21.12, finally getting the Soph Class record that eluded him last week!!
He moves from 15th A-T HS , tied with 3 others, to 11th!
Spearmon won with his 20.69!

Lauren Harris IS the best female HS Walker extant!
She again broke a HSR--this time for the 1500 meters!
Her time was a nifty 6:17.59!!
(To give you some idea of this young lady's talent--and potential!!--the great US Walkster Maria Michta-Coffey took the Millrose Mile in 6:31 and change!!  Oh yes, Michta-Coffey mentors Harris!!)
Harris got the Mile Walk record last year!!

Since this post is mainly about Records, I'll close with one for the HS PRO division!!
Candace Hill--who turned 18 yesterday!--got her THIRD record in my self-devised Record Section!
While losing the race to Shakima Wimbley (more on her in the next post!), Hill's 4th place time of 53.05 claimed the 400 meter HS PRO mark!!
And the HS PRO Senior Class record!!

In fact, this 3rd record now puts Hill in elite HS PRO territory!
Mary Cain also has a trio of HS PRO records!!
And because Hill had TWO years to collect records of this kind---to Cain's one year!---she now owns MORE HS PRO Class Records than Cain---4 to Cain's 3!!

On THAT note, I'll close this baby and send it to you, my loyal readers!
Expect the second post in a few hours!