Oregon22 highlights from Thursday: Raevyn Rogers survives physical 800 prelim heat
After watching all the jostling that took place in the men’s 800-meter preliminary heats Wednesday night, Raevyn Rogers said she knew what was coming her way on Thursday.
The former Oregon star was briefly knocked off her stride with 200 to go before unleashing her infamous kick down the Hayward Field homestretch to win her women's 800 preliminary heat in 2:01.36, safely advancing to Friday’s World Athletics Championships semifinals.
“It was definitely physical and there was a couple times in the race where I really had to adjust mentally,” Rogers said. “ … I had to snap into it and let the adrenaline carry me.”
Rogers was in sixth place coming off the final turn before moving outside and powering past the leaders. She caught Ethiopia’s Habitam Alemu at the line to win the heat by .01 second.
Rogers has won medals at the last two global championships — silver in 2019 at the Doha world championships and Olympic bronze last summer in Tokyo. A member of Union Athletics Club in Portland, Rogers said she has been in Eugene since the world championships began on July 15.
“I’ve been here having my own experience,” she said. “I came Friday and then I watched everybody compete, so that’s been super exciting seeing everybody go out there, talk about how amazing the crowd is and I’m just super excited it’s our time.”
— Chris Hansen
Oregon’s Ihemeje advances to triple jump final
Emmanuel Ihemeje has competed in big meets before, but Thursday night was still different.
The three-time NCAA champion for Oregon and a 2020 Olympian was back on a familiar runway at Hayward Field and he performed like a man comfortable with his surroundings.
Ihemeje advanced out of the men’s triple jump qualifying rounds and into Saturday’s final with a season-best mark of 56 feet, 2½ inches.
“It feels good to be home,” said the Duck sophomore who competes for Italy. “Like I always say, this is kind of my comfort zone. This is where I eat, sleep, repeat.”
The Olympics in Tokyo last season were conducted in empty arenas due to COVID-19. At Hayward Field on Thursday, Ihemeje competed in front of close to 15,000 spectators.
“This is the biggest stage I’ve ever competed on in my whole career,” Ihemeje said.
He certainly embraced the moment.
Ihemeje’s opening jump went 55-10½, a mark that allowed him to comfortably pass on his second attempt. He took his third attempt at recorded the third-bast mark of the day.
Ihemeje continues to be coached by Robert Johnson, the former head coach of the Oregon track and field program who wasn’t retained when his contract expired in June.
“This is just a little step,” Ihemeje said. “But I’m getting to get a bigger step.”
— Chris Hansen
Grant Fisher plays it safe as he advances to men's 5K final
It might have looked like Grant Fisher was trying to win his men’s 5,000-meter semifinal heat, but really, being up front was just a nice, safe place to run.
“I wanted to stay out of the ruckus,” Fisher said. “Sometimes in these races you can get caught in the churn mid pack so I wanted to keep my nose out of that and near the front and ready for all the moves.”
Fisher finished second in his heat in 13:24.44, behind only Uganda’s Oscar Chelimo who crossed in 13:24.24 as they earned two of the five automatic qualifying spots from their heat into Sunday’s final.
Fisher was one of four members of Portland’s Bowerman Athletic Club in the 5,000 and one of three who advanced.
That included Olympic silver medalist Moh Ahmed of Canada, who was fifth in his heat in 13:15.17 to automatically advance.
Fisher and Ahmed finished fourth and sixth, respectively, in last Sunday’s 10,000 final.
“That was a nice little rust buster coming off the 10,000,” said Ahmed, who playfully sprinted and leaned through the finish line with Kenya’s Daniel Simiu Ebenyp, who also officially clocked 13:15.17.
Great Britain’s Marc Scott advanced to the final on time with his eighth-place finish in heat two in 13:22.54.
Not so lucky was Woody Kincaid, as the U.S. runner-up took a hard fall midway through the race and ended up with an 11th-place finish in 13:25.02and track burn covering his back right shoulder.
“I didn’t expect this race to be very physical,” he said. “It’s the second heat and I thought it was going to spread out kind of early, and it turns out, right when it did get physical I went down.”
Kincaid said he was going to file a protest to try and get into the final.
“I think I have a good argument,” he said. “I didn’t give up in the race and I don’t think anyone who was supposed to get in didn’t get in because of me. … Honestly, I think we just got tangled up.”
— Chris Hansen
Top US decathlete Scantling banned from world championships
American decathlon champion Garrett Scantling is not at the world championships this week in the wake of a ban for missed doping tests.
Scantling, who finished fourth at the Tokyo Olympics last year, was left off the 151-person American team when it was announced earlier this month; the fourth-place finisher at this year's nationals, Steven Bastien, was on the team. No reason was given at the time.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency released news that Scantling was serving a provisional suspension that began Thursday — opening day for the decathlon —for a potential tampering violation that “stems from Scantling’s conduct during an investigation into his third potential whereabouts failure.”
Athletes are required to provide their schedules to anti-doping authorities so they can send doping-control officers to administer no-notice, out-of-competition tests. The third time an athlete cannot be located over a certain period can result in a penalty.
USADA said Scantling agreed to have his provisional suspension made public while his case is pending.
Scantling, who previously tried out for the NFL's Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars, won the nationals in May with 8,867 points, which is the highest score in the world this year.
— The Associated Press
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Track & field world championships Oregon22 Wednesday highlights
