June 19, 2003
South Carolina’s top American track athletes will compete at the United States Track and Field Championships beginning Thursday on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Top competitors from the meet, which runs through Sunday, June 22, will advance to compete in August’s World Championships in Paris, France, with the top three finishers in each final of the USATF Championships who have achieved the IAAF’s “A” standard advancing.
Among USC’s current athletes competing during this weekend are: Tony Allmond (Long Jump), Miki Barber (400m Dash), Jonathan Fortenberry (400m Dash), Chelsea Hammond (Long Jump), Otis Harris (400m Dash), Tiffany Ross (400m Hurdles), Charles Ryan (110m Hurdles), Shevon Stoddart (400m Hurdles), Corey Taylor (110m Hurdles), Erica Whipple (100m and 200m Dash) and Antoinette Wilks (100m Hurdles and Long Jump). Also competing are several athletes with USC ties including alumni Lisa Barber, Dawn Ellerbe Terrence Trammell, Demetria Washington, and volunteer assistant coaches Allen Johnson and Melissa Morrison.
“We have a tradition of sending athletes from USC on to International Competition,” said head coach Curtis Frye. “Over the past few years, we have sent people to not only the World Championships, but the Olympic Games, Pan American Games and Goodwill Games. We are not just here to compete. Our mission is to continue sending our athletes on to high-profile International events.”
Frye will serve on the USA staff for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, where he will assist the coaching of women’s sprints and hurdles. In 2001, he was the USA men’s head coach at the Goodwill Games after a stint as a USA assistant coach at the 1999 World Championships. Frye has coached 17 Olympians, including six medalists, during his career.
The Gamecocks women’s team placed third and the men’s squad finished tenth at last weekend’s NCAA Championships in Sacramento. It marked the eighth-straight top-10 finish for USC’s women and the second consecutive top-10 finish for the men’s team. Carolina totaled 22 All-Americans and four school records during the weekend.
In individual events, Aleen Bailey, who is competing at this weekend’s Jamaican Track Championships, completed a sweep of the 100m and 200m dash races and became the first woman to achieve that feat since 1998. Harris set a school-record in the 400m dash with a time off 44.57 in the final. He finished in second place by a photo finish, just sixth-thousandths of a second from victory.
USC also established school marks when Tony Allmond jumped 26′ 3.75″ for a second-place finish in the long jump and the women’s 4×100 relay team of Ross, Whipple, Alexis Joyce and Bailey ran a time of 43.83.
NBC will broadcast the USATF Championships live on Saturday, June 21 from 4-6 p.m. EDT and ESPN2 will televise events live on Sunday, June 22 from 4-5:30 p.m. EDT. For more information, including complete schedules and live results, visit www.usatf.org.
