Sunday, July 6, 2008

Notes from Raff: Saturday

And now there is only one day of the Trials to go...

Our tour group consists of many different people from many different places. Of course most of the group are teachers --English, phy. Ed., math, art, government, biology, athletic directors, social workers, elementary and history. But some are engineers, lawyers, computer networkers, a pipe-fitter, a future financial adviser, truck driver, accountant, business consultant, advertiser, house-maker, laborer, public health researcher, nurse, credit analyst, and author.

Most come from Michigan – Flint, Lansing, Ann Arbor, suburban Detroit, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Mt. Pleasant, but others come from Minnesota, the East and West coast.

This is the fifth Olympic Trial group tour, which evolved from over twenty-five yearly NCAA indoor championship tours.

And if you would like to make the sixth Trial group, contact tour director Charlie Janke of Jackson, Michigan at 517-592-2346 immediately if not sooner.

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How about another Carter on the Olympic team representing the United States?? Michael Carter’s daughter Michelle won the shot put today with a toss of 61-10 ¼, the farthest throw of her life. Michael Carter, as you know was an Olympic silver medalist n the 1984 Olympic games in Los Angeles. (He also was a noted football player for the San Francisco 49ers.)

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Tyson Gay, who won the 100 dash last weekend, started in the 200 prelims and did not finish because of leg problems. But don’t worry, there will be three top 200 runners on our Olympic team.

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Michigan’s top two hurdlers, Candice Davis of Ann Arbor Pioneer and the University of Southern California and Tiffany Ofili of Ypsilanti and the U of Michigan, advanced to tomorrow’s semi-finals. Both placed third in their quarter-final heats.

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Eastern Michigan University’s Jordan Desilets and Corey Nowitzke finished eighth and tenth in today’s 3000 meter steeplechase finals. Tony Famiglietti took the race out fast and led from start to finish in 8:20.24.

Desilits and Nowitzke looked sluggish after running strong and hard in the prelims on Thursday. Maybe both needed one more rest day.

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Eastern Michigan’s last hope for an Olympic spot in 2008 belonged to Jamie Nieto, a dreaded fourth place finisher in the ’04 games in Greece.

Nieto tied for second at 7-5 ¼ in the high jump today, and the end of the high jump produced much confusion as the officials gave two pairs of jumpers additional jumps for no reason. I’ll investigate the confusion and explain tomorrow.

Anyway Nieto’s second place did not produce an Olympic spot because the EMU alum did not have the “A” Standard of 7-6 ½.

And now there is only one more day of the Trials.

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