Top Track Trials Takeaways

Just in case you were wondering, DeAnna Price and Brooke Andersen were the other two women in the hammer throw picture.  You probably didn't know that, since their names weren't mentioned ONCE!  And that's sad.  Especially since Price is the defending World champion, set an American record to win Trials, and is probably the gold medal favorite in Tokyo.  But that situation's already gotten way too much oxygen, so the less I say about it, the better.

Wadeline Jonathas was similarly ignored after the women's 400 final...and she wasn't happy about it.  So unhappy, in fact, that she took to Twitter to voice her frustration.  She gets it.  Allyson Felix making her fifth team (and first as a mom), and being joined on the team by fellow mother Quanera Hayes is definitely quite a story.  But Jonathas made the team, too, and it would've been nice if people had at least acknowledged that.

Then there's Whitney Ashley, who doesn't seem to understand the concept that having the Olympic standard means absolutely nothing if you don't, you know, make the team!  Ashley, who finished fifth in the women's discus, threw herself a little pity party on Twitter because she wasn't selected for the team despite having the standard, even though two of the women who finished above her don't.  I'm not gonna get into the complexities of the qualification process, but the fourth-place finisher has a high enough world ranking to fill out the field, and the U.S. qualification process has always been very clear.  Your finish at Trials take precedence.  Either you make the team or you don't.  And Ashley didn't.  Plain and simple.  It's been that way for years.

Another person who didn't make the team was Donavan Brazier in the men's 800.  Neither did Justin Gatlin in the 100, likely ending his Olympic career.  Or Jenny Simpson, who's won a medal at seemingly every global championship in the women's 1500 for a decade.  Other than that, though, the surprises at Trials were pretty limited.  The people who were supposed to make the team did, and the stage was set for the U.S. to take home quite a medal haul from Tokyo.

As for the new Hayward Field, that place is fast!  Records were being set left and right.  I can't wait to see what happens at next year's World Championships, when it hopefully won't be uncomfortably hot.  Although, their decision to move the final night's session to the evening wasn't just a smart one from a safety perspective.  It also led to two of the meet's signature moments.  What were the others?  Here's my list...

10. JuVaughn Harrison makes the team in both the high jump & long jump: He won both at the NCAA Championships, but I thought there was no way he'd actually be able to make the team in both.  Boy was I wrong!  Not only did he make the team in both, he won both at Trials!  The last American man to do both the long jump and high jump at the same Olympics?  Jim Thorpe in 1912.

9. That women's 1500 finish: Elle Purrier (one of my favorites) was going to make the team, so her dominant meet record wasn't much of a surprise.  Spots 2 and 3 definitely were, though.  They ended up going to Cory McGee, who hadn't made a U.S. team since 2015 and had never been an Olympian, and Heather MacLean, who didn't even have the standard until she ran it in the final!  McLean finished just .09 seconds ahead of Shannon Osika.  The difference between a trip to Tokyo and waiting three years.

8. Keni Harrison's redemption: In 2016, Keni Harrison didn't make the team, then set the world record two weeks later.  (The three Americans who did go to Rio swept the medals.)  So one of the big questions heading into Trials was whether she'd finally make her first Olympic team.  She did.  Emphatically!
 
7. Allyson Felix's Trials farewell: There was a good reason why NBC played up Felix's final Olympic Trials so much.  She is America's most decorated female track & field athlete in history, after all!  When she decided to run the 400, it seemed like a lock she'd be on the team because of the relay, but when she finished second and made the team individually, it definitely was something!  So what that she finished fifth in the 200?  A double in Tokyo wouldn't have been possible anyway.  Besides, I think she ran the 200 just to say goodbye and thank you to the fans.

6. Rai Benjamin blows everyone away: I think Karsten Warholm is still probably the Olympic favorite in the men's 400 hurdles, but Rai Benjamin's definitely gonna give him a run for his money.  His time in the final was 46.83 seconds.  How absurdly fast is that?  It's the second-fastest in history.  Just .05 seconds off Kevin Young's 29-year-old record from the Barcelona Olympics.  Young may not be the world record holder anymore post-Tokyo.

5. Grant Holloway dominates: Holloway ran a very easy 13.11 in his heat.  Then he ran a 12.81, one-hundredth of a second off the world record, in his semi!  The final wasn't that fast (12.96), but Holloway's message was very clear.  The defending world champ is the one to beat in Tokyo.

4. Sha'Carri Richardson has arrived: It's been 25 years since an American has won Olympic gold in the women's 100.  That could change in Tokyo because of a dynamic personality who has made her presence known.  Sha'Carri Richardson reminds a lot of people of FloJo.  It's easy to see why.  She's just as flashy and just as fast.  Richardson ran a ridiculous 10.64 in her semi, then won the final by five meters.

3. Athing Mu makes it look easy: Athing Mu has been the "next big thing" in American track & field for a few years now.  The 800 is her main event, but she didn't even run it at all for Texas A&M during the outdoor season.  She returned to the 800 for Trials and put on a show.  With 2019 World Championships medalists Raevyn Rogers and Ajee Wilson in the field, Mu ran away with it.  She won by more than a second and set a Trials record of 1:56.07.

2. Sydney McLaughlin's world record: Because of the excessive heat delay, the women's 400 hurdles final wasn't until after midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning.  It was well worth the wait!  Every time Dalilah Muhammad and Sydney McLaughlin square off, something special happens.  This showdown was no different.  It was the third straight time they went 1-2 and a world record was set.  This time, it was McLaughlin who became the first woman ever to break 52 seconds.  This rivalry will now head to Tokyo, where McLaughlin is now the likely gold-medal favorite.

1. Ryan Crouser's world record: The first day, the first final, and we already knew it would be an incredible meet.  Ryan Crouser, the 2016 Olympic champion who set an indoor world record in February, has been chasing the outdoor record for a while.  In the fourth round of the final, he got it!  And he knew it, too!  You could tell by his reaction when the ball left his hand!  He didn't just break the record, either.  He obliterated it!  23.37 meters, more than 25 centimeters further than then 30-year-old mark.

Plenty of other moments could've been on this list, too.  Because, once again, Trials lived up to the hype.  It's the hardest team in the world to make, and you need to earn your place on it.  And that's exactly what the U.S. Olympic track & field team did.  Look out, Tokyo!  Because that was just the start.