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- #96 - Rose Wins Historic Medal!!
#96 - Rose Wins Historic Medal!!
Final Night In Tokyo
Inside This Issue
Discus: Rose Wins Historic Bronze!
Alex Rose, the pride of Ogemaw Heights and Samoa, made history by being the first from his nation to win a World or Olympic medal, capturing the bronze in a competition that was challenged by extremely difficult rain conditions.
So torrential was the rain at the scheduled start that the event was delayed by two hours, only starting after the “final” event, the men’s 4 × 100, had concluded. A steady rain fell throughout the contest. A team of officials rushed into the ring before every throw to dry the ring with towels. Even so, footing was horrible, with several throwers experiencing hard falls, and fouls aplenty.
After a 190-0 (57.93) opener put him in 5th place, he threw a 212-0 (64.63) bomb in round 2 to move into bronze position. That didn’t hold up, and by the start of round 5 after two fouls, he was back in 5th. Then he launched a monster throw that landed at 219-8 (66.96). That would hold up for bronze behind 2-time World Champion Daniel Ståhl of Sweden and World Record holder and Olympic runner-up Mykolas Alekna of Lithuania.
“This is one of the greatest moments of my entire life and it's been 20 years in the making,” said Rose. “I was never the favorite. I did not throw 60m until I was out of college. It's been a really long road. To win a bronze medal is a dream come true. It is the culmination of so much effort for some many years. I knew I had a big throw in me. I didn't make a final until I was 30 years old. I almost quit so many times. The last time I was here I failed to make the final. I fell on my face and almost quit the sport. It was awful.
“To come back here and do what I just did, there is no feeling like it. This was the hardest year of training in my life. I have a four-month old baby at home. I have not been sleeping. I could barely compete this year. I did not have time to train. My wife, Sam, and son, I love them so much. I knew I could do it.
“My coach believed in me. I have such a great support system. My wife understands my passion. The young Pacific Island athletes, never give up. I work a full-time job and took time off to from my company to compete here. While waiting for the competition to start, I knew I could capitalise on this. I have been here before. This was my fourth international final and I knew just needed one good throw. I am so happy. I leave for home on Thursday. My sister flew all the way here to support me.”
Decathlon: Baldwin Takes 6th
Heath Baldwin was in 6th place in the decathlon after the first day, with his 4310 points. He maintained that pace on day 2, accumulating a total of 8337 for 6th overall, a significant improvement on his 10th in the Paris Olympics. It’s the No. 6 score of his career and he got one PR along the way, in the 1500.
His day 1 breakdown: 100-11.01; LJ—23-10/7.26; SP—50-3½/15.33; HJ—6-9¾/2.08; 400—48.44. His day 2: 110H 14.16; DT—134-6/41.01; PV—15-9/4.80; JT—214-0/65.24; 1500—4:33.42 PR.
5000: Fisher Makes It Faster, Finishes 8th
As he had hinted, Grant Fisher switched up his tactics for his shorter race. In fact, he followed the advice of many armchair coaches in taking the lead repeatedly and making it a faster race in the hopes of nullifying some of the kickers. Did it work? Not at all.
He first moved to the front at 600 and it turns out that he and Nico Young agreed to take turns pushing the pace. The first K took 2:40, the second (with them at the front) 2:35. Eventually Ethiopia’s Hagos Gebrhiwet joined them at the front. The pace eased up a little. At 2900, Fisher went to the front again. He led past 3000 in 7:51.78.
At 3500, Biniam Mehary of Ethiopia took over, then it was Jakob Ingebrigtsen. And Fisher, whether it was a lapse or exhaustion, got swallowed by the pack and boxed in. Ingebrigtsen slowed the pace, favoring the kickers. As Cole Hocker & Company made their way to the front on the last lap, Fisher started his last 300 in last out of the possible contenders: 12th place. Hocker got the gold and the other big kickers grabbed the rest of the medals. Fisher could salvage only 8th in 13:00.79.
“I wanted to make it an honest race,” explained Fisher. “I know how my body felt going into this and I felt that not turning it into a 400m dash at the end would have been good for me. And I tried to do that, but it still turned into a 400m dash… I just didn’t have the gas in my legs, which is disappointing.”
A lesson for those who preach leading hard to beat the kickers. It just doesn’t work unless the leader has a huge superiority over the rest of the field. None of the men who led in the first 4800m finished higher than 5th.
How Michigan Did
This year’s Michigander squad added two bronze medals, the most medals we’ve ever won at a World Champs. Now our total is 2 golds and 3 bronzes in World Champs history. We also had 6 athletes make the finals. Not a bad meet. And great motivation for those who are training hard for Beijing ‘27!
m200 – Udodi Onwuzurike (Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice-Nigeria) 2h – 20.27 (-0.3); 7s – 20.26 (1.0)
m800 – Donavan Brazier (Kenowa Hills) 1h – 1:44.66; 3s – 1:43.82
m5000 – Grant Fisher (Grand Blanc) 6h – 13:41.83; 8 – 13:00.79
m10,000 – Grant Fisher (Grand Blanc) 8 – 28:57.85
mDT – Alex Rose (Ogemaw Heights-Samoa) BRONZE 3 – 219-8/66.96
w200 – Anavia Battle (Wayne Memorial) 1h – 22.07 (0.1); 1s – 22.09 (-0.3); 4 – 22.22 (-0.1)
w200 – Fatouma Conde (Ann Arbor Huron-Guinea) 8h – 23.42 (0.1)
w100H – Grace Stark (White Lake Lakeland) BRONZE 1h – 12.46 (0.1); 1s – 12.37 (-0.5); 3 – 12.34 (-0.1)
w100H – Aasia Laurencin (Oak Park-St Lucia) 5h – 13.03 (0.0)
w400H – Anna Cockrell (Country Day MS) 1h – 53.63; 1s – 53.28; 4 – 53.13
Day Job Update
If you’re a new subscriber, you may not realize that I’m managing editor for Track & Field News magazine, which has been covering the sport since 1947. I’m not quite that old, having worked for the publication for nearly half that time. If you are one of Michtrack’s financial supporters, I want to reassure you that your very appreciated donations are not what sent me to Tokyo.
While it would be nice to have the Michtrack resources to fly all over the world to exclusively cover Michigan athletes, that is about a million years away. It’s T&FN that sent me to Tokyo, and I’ve been spending the vast majority of my time grinding away for them. Any Michtrack newsletters have been written in the wee hours when I’m done with my “real” work.
Just for kicks, here are some of the articles I’ve written while here. There will be a few more to come, the men’s 800, 5000, TJ and 4×1 (And FYI, if you’re not a T&FN subscriber, there’s a 3-article limit on viewing them, but you can see more if you switch to your phone or another computer—it’s a 3-article limit per device. And if you’re an advanced user, you already know how to play the VPN game.).
Other Things
XC: Pioneer’s Natasza Dudek raised eyebrows at the Jackson Charlie Janke Invitational. Running in near-perfect conditions on the storied course, the sophomore ripped a 16:29.4, one of the fastest times in state history. She won by 50 seconds over the excellent 17:20.0 of Romeo’s Annie Hrabovsky. The guys race was also an AAP show, with Kamari Ronfeldt (14:47.9) topping teammate Beckett Crooks (14:56.1).
The Kermit Ambrose Collection: About our historical efforts at Michtrack, which is what your donations are actually supporting. Thanks to a gift from Catholic Central’s Brian Wilson, we are now in possession of a priceless collection of Kermit Ambrose’s files. It’s maybe a third of the total put together by the dean of Michigan coaching and officiating, a man who played a vital role in the sport in our state for more than 40 years. Some of you may have heard the story of many of his files being tossed in a dumpster after his death. Brian is the man who rescued as much as he could of that stuff, and to him we owe a huge debt. A lot of it is films and photos; it’s going to cost money to get it digitized so we can share it all. Hopefully when the job slows down this fall we can dive into this project. We will keep you posted.
Those Old Files Can Get You A Tax Break: That’s right. We are after your old paper results files, anything prior to 2010 (pre-Athletic-net days). We are digitizing them and saving them all in our free, publicly accessible Michtrack Results Archive. As a 501c3, not only are financial donations to us a legit IRS tax write-off, but so are archival materials like that box of old results in the basement. (The way it works is that upon receipt of the results, we will send you the required donation letter. The amount you choose to deduct on your taxes is up to you.) Contact us if you have old results. Our goal is to eventually get them all online. It’s not a quick process, but it’s going to happen. Email us at [email protected].
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