USATF Outdoor Championships: 10 Men’s Events with Collegians in Contention

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NEW ORLEANS — Some of them are exhausted after a long collegiate season designed to peak three weeks ago, while others are fresher and have been eyeing this meet all year.  Some are undergrads trying to stretch out their summer, while others are out of eligibility and are essentially at their first job interview.  They’re all collegians returning to Eugene for this year’s USA championships. 

Below, we break down male collegians’ chances at making Team USA—as Vin Lananna ceaselessly reminds us all, the “best team in the world”—for this August’s world championships in Beijing.

Keep reading or click one of the 10 events below for detailed breakdowns.

100 | 200 | 400 | 5000 | 400H | HJ | LJ | TJ | HT | DEC

There’s a new qualifying system this summer.  Rather than the old and unmissed A/B standards, there is one standard. Athletes who hit the standard and finish in the top three are good to go to worlds.  (This isn’t true for the 5k and 10k, where only athletes with the standard will be accepte to Beijing) For everyone else, they’re likely safe anyway as the IAAF will use the world descending order list to fill out fields.  Each event preview has the standard situation fully broken down below.

Also, check out the 10 WOMEN’s events to watch from a collegiate perspective here.

Men’s 100 Meters

Final: Friday, 10:30pm ET / 7:30pm PT
Semifinals: Friday, 8:15pm ET / 5:15pm PT
Prelims: Thursday, 9pm ET / 6pm PT

The contending collegians: Trayvon Bromell, Baylor; Clayton Vaughn, UT-Arlington; Bryce Robinson, Tulsa; Jarrion Lawson, Arkansas; Ronnie Baker, TCU; Tevin Hester, Clemson; Kendal Williams, Florida State

Standard concerns: Everyone has it, and the top three will join Justin Gatlin in Beijing.
                                 
Their chances of making the team: For everyone but Bromell, making the final would be a huge success.  For Bromell, he’s likely tweaked his training after petering out internationally last summer with a huge upset loss in the world junior 100 final. He’s as good as any American sprinter not named Tyson Gay or Justin Gatlin, and Gatlin is skipping the event this weekend—he has a bye to worlds—and focusing on the 200.

Only Gay has run faster wind-legal than Bromell’s 9.90 this year. 

Men’s 200 Meters

Final: Friday, 5:22pm ET / 2:22pm PT
Semifinals: Sunday, 2:50pm ET / 11:50am PT
Prelims: Saturday, 3:05pm ET / 12:05pm PT

The contending collegians: Bromell, Williams; Dedric Dukes, Florida; Aaron Ernest, LSU

Standard concerns: Everyone has it.
                                 
Their chances of making the team: Behind Gatlin—who is as close to a lock as you can have—the two spots on Team USA are wide open.  Dukes beat Bromell in the 200 final at NCAAs, and those two are among the favorites for those last two spots.  But they’ll have to contend with a host of competent and veteran pros, including Gay, Curtis Mitchell, Wallace Spearmon, and Gatlin’s training partner Isiah Young. Dukes has the second fastest wind-legal time in the US this year.

A final note on the short sprints: it is going to be insanely hot in Eugene.  If the winds are favorable, look for the hot temps and demonstrably fast track to produce historically fast times—particularly in the 200, featuring a fresh Gatlin.

Men’s 400 Meters

Final: Saturday, 5:42pm ET / 2:42pm PT
Semifinals: Friday, 10:53pm ET / 7:53pm PT
Prelims: Thursday, 7:45pm ET / 4:45pm PT

The contending collegians: Vernon Norwood, LSU; Najee Glass, Florida

Standard concerns: Everyone has it, and the top three finishers who aren’t LaShawn Merritt will join Merritt in Beijing.
                                 
Their chances of making the team: Norwood showed an impressive ability to handle the compressed schedule at NCAAs, meaning that the three rounds of USAs should be no problem for him.  That’s less true for Glass, who had the second fastest time in the prelims at NCAAs (removing Deon Lendore) but only finished fourth in the final.

Only seven men qualified with a mark faster than forty-five seconds, so Glass and Norwood should be safe to make the final. And once they get there, they’ll likely only have to crack the top four—half the field on Hayward’s eight-lane track—to make the team.  Both have a pretty good shot.

Men’s 5000 Meters

Final: NEW TIME – Sunday, 1:45pm ET / 10:45am PT

The contending collegians: Eric Jenkins, Oregon

Standard concerns: The IAAF isn’t going to the descending order list for the 5k, but the standard is only 13:23.00. Jenkins hasn’t hit that this year, but his career best is 13:18.  If he finishes in the top three, he’ll likely punch his ticket to Beijing with a fast 5k after nationals.
                                 
Their chances of making the team: As has been extensively documented, Jenkins has barely raced outside of national championships this year.  Arguably, his only two all-out efforts that weren’t at nationals came in February, when he torched a 7:44 3k and ran a leg on Oregon’s 9:27 DMR.

This is a brutal team to crack, with two spots historically black-ink penned in for Galen Rupp and Bernard Lagat.  The forty-year-old Lagat is mildly vulnerable, but even if he falters, Ben True, Ryan Hill, Garrett Heath, and a phalanx of talented and fit dudes have credentials stronger than Jenkins.

Jenkins has two things working for him.  It’s his home track. Out of all of the contenders for the third spot, only Hassan Mead is based in Eugene.  And he has an outstanding kick—as good as anyone in the field not named Rupp or Lagat.  Heath’s 3:34 1500 at the Portland Track Festival doesn’t bode well for Jenkins; nor do Mead’s and True’s 13:02 PBs.  But he has a shot.

Men’s 400-Meter Hurdles

Final: Saturday, 5:11pm ET / 2:11pm PT
Semifinals: Friday, 10:04pm ET / 7:04pm PT
Prelims: Thursday, 8:10pm ET / 5:10pm PT

The contending collegians: Michael Stigler, Kansas

Standard concerns: Stigler has it, and the top three finishers who aren’t Michael Tinsley will join Tinsley in Beijing.
                                 
Their chances of making the team:   Bershawn “Batman” Jackson and Johnny Dutch have looked great on the pro circuit this year, and Tinsley’s Diamond League title adds a fourth spot to the team.  Giving the first three to Jackson, Dutch, and Tinsley, Stigler is a solid contender for the fourth.  Only those four men have qualified with a sub-49 mark.  But with ten barriers, anything can happen, and a whopping twelve men have the standard.

Men’s High Jump

Final: Friday, 8:40pm ET / 5:40pm PT

The contending collegians: Jacorian Duffield and Bradley Adkins, Texas Tech; Jeron Robinson, Texas A&M Kingsville; Bryan McBride, Arizona State; Wally Ellenson, Marquette

Standard concerns: Everyone has it.
                                 
Their chances of making the team: Robinson could be an incredibly rare bird in a few months: an athlete still competing in Division II who has already qualified for an American world championship team.  The TAMU-Kingsville junior has the same SB as DI champ Duffield, and is in a four-way tie for best the No. 2 qualifying mark. 

McBride is only a centimeter shy of that tie—and not competing in the LJ like he did at NCAAs—and Adkins and Ellenson are only another centimeter behind him. 

This team is wide open.  Erik Kynard will almost certainly make it, and the two spots behind him could equally likely be filled be zero, one, or two collegians.

Men’s Long Jump

Final: Thursday, 8pm ET / 5pm PT

The contending collegians: Marquis Dendy, Florida; Jarrion Lawson, Arkansas

Standard concerns: Everyone has it.
                                 
Their chances of making the team: Taylor and Ashton Eaton are capitalizing on their WC byes by competing in this event.  And while Dendy and Lawson actually both have wind-legal career bests that are better than Taylor’s and Eaton’s, the latter two are monstrously talented athletes with a stellar record of performing well at championships.

This is going to be a tough top three to crack—but not necessarily as tough a team to make.  Eaton almost certainly won’t compete in the long jump at worlds, and Taylor hasn’t competed in the long jump at an IAAF championship since he did so at world juniors in 2008. 

Lawson was one of the breakout stars of the NCAA meet, becoming one of the rare jumpers to break ten in the open 100.   He and Dendy have been separated by a statistically insignificant amount all year—though Dendy went 4-0 at conference and national championships, the last three wins were by an average of nine centimeters. They have a roughly equal shot of making the team.

Men’s Triple Jump

Final: Sunday, 3:10pm ET / 12:10pm PT

The contending collegians: Dendy.

Standard concerns: Dendy has it; Diamond League champ Christian Taylor has a bye to worlds in the event, meaning the top three could join him in Beijing.
                                 
Their chances of making the team:  This is the men’s event in which a collegian has the best chance of making the team. It’s hard to see Dendy not making it.

Men’s Hammer Throw

Final: Thursday, 6:55pm ET / 3:55pm PT

The contending collegians: Conor McCullough, USC; Mike Lihrman, Wisconsin; Matthias Tayala, Kent State; Chukwuebuka Enekwechi, Purdue; Greg Skipper, Oregon

Standard concerns: McCullough has it and no one else does.  Lihrman and Enekwechi would almost certainly end up high enough on the descending order list if they finish in the top three; they’re currently 28th and 46th when limiting other countries to three athletes.
                                 
Their chances of making the team: McCullough has had an almost robotic consistency since joining the USC team in January.  The U.S. is lucky to have him competing for a spot, as he represented Ireland prior to 2015. It’s hard to imagine him not making the team.

Lihrman and Enekwechi struggled hugely at NCAAs, finishing sixteenth and sixth respectively.  But even if they lose to Skipper and Tayala, they could end up on the team thanks to their marks.  The likelier outcome, though, is that pros A.G. Kruger and Kibwe Johnson make the team ahead of all of them.

Men’s Decathlon

Thursday and Friday

The contending collegians: Garrett Scantling, Georgia; Zach Ziemek, Wisconsin; Dakotah Keys, Oregon

Standard concerns: Scantling has it, and everyone else is safe on the world descending order list. The top three will likely join Ashton Eaton in Beijing.
                                 
Their chances of making the team: Scantling has an excellent chance.  Ziemek is a wild card, as he redshirted the outdoor season but is seemingly healthy.  He posted a score of 7964 points at Drake in April in his only decathlon since last year’s NCAA outdoor meet.

Trey Hardee is the only lock for this team, and “lock” is a little strong in an event with so many moving parts.  Scantling, Ziemek, and Keys will go against Curtis Beach, Jeremy Taiwo, and more for those last two spots.