Freshman Miranda Melville and Sophomore Le'erin Voss will join UW-P volunteer assistant coach Sam Cohen at the USA National Indoor Track Championships held in Boston Sunday, March 24.
Cohen led the way at the Wisconsin USATF Indoor Championships held Sunday at Carthage College in the 3000m Race Walk event. Cohen is the defending USA Indoor Champion and walked a career best of 13:33.98 to capture the event. She was followed to the finish line by the UW-P duo of Melville (14:31.90) and Voss (14:32.13), each walking career best marks as well. The fourth place finisher in the event was another UW-P Assistant, Ali Bahr, who was timed in 15:25.63.
Cohen took charge from the gun and lapped the field during the final lap of the race. Voss did the pace work for Melville and helped the "rookie" to a spot at Nationals with a strong finish.
UW-P Coach Mike De Witt commented on the efforts of the women: "The walkers have not competed since October and have been working very hard over the past few months. They were excited to compete in a race and are now set to race in a couple of weeks on a bigger stage. The next 6 months includes several opportunities for the women with the World Cup Trials coming up at the end of March in Oregon as well as on Long Island for Melville, who is still eligible for the U-19 USA Junior Team. There are the Olympic Trials to be held in July at the University of Oregon as well. The group has a great work ethic and each are on target to have a great season."
SHOREY, QUIRKE COMPETE AT NATIONALS
UW-Parkside alums and current UW-P volunteer assistant coaches Benjamin Shorey and Stephen Quirke finished third and fourth at Saturday's US Olympic Trials 50km race walk that was held in the balmy 80 degree temperatures along the ocean front of Miami Beach.
Shorey and Quirke walked step-for-step over the 25 laps of the 2000m course and moved from ninth and 10th place in the early stages of the race to their final finishing positions near the mid-point of the race. Their final times were 4:27:14 and 4:27:15.
The winner of the event was two-time Olympian Philip Dunn of Chula Vista, Californina. His time was 4:12:55.
No one in the event was able to reach the Olympic Games Standard of 4:10:00, which means currently there will be no entrants in the event at Bejing this summer. The athletes will have the opportunity to reach that standard in May by virtue of their Top 4 finish. They are eligible to compete for the USA at the World Cup of Race Walking on the weekend of May 10-11 that will be held in Cheboksary, Russia.
Three other UW-P alums competed in the event and included Ray Sharp, who finished fifth with a time of 4:49:24 along with Tim Seaman and Dave Mc Govern, who did not finish.
UW-P Track and Race Walk Coach Mike De Witt commented on the races of Shorey and Quirke: "The men did a great job of taking care of themselves in this race. Going in, they knew it would be difficult for anyone to earn a time standard, so the main goal was to finish as high up in the standings without jeopardizing a Disqualification but earning a spot on the World Cup Squad. In good conditions both feel confident they can meet the standard and that will be the goal in Russia." "The prize money was also a very good motivation to not go for broke, as the walkers we able to come away with over $12,000 in finishing money."
RESULTS LINK:
http://www.usatf.org/events/2008/OlympicTrials-RW/results.asp
