Posted: August 14, 2005

Athletics: Team USA Sunday quotes from Helsinki

Jenny Crain, marathon

We had a near perfect day, weather wise. The course was rolling which was pretty good for everyone. I went out fairly conservative, but the hills still got me at the end.

Emily Levan, marathon

A great race for me, with a PR by almost a minute and a half. I felt pretty good the whole way. The Finnish crowd was amazing. I am so pleased to be here and represent the USA. I'll take home a lot of experience. This is my first international team, and I will use a lot of the experiences to help me in future races. I'm excited by my time, and feel that I can get even better.

Turena Johnson Lane, marathon

I was glad that I PR'd today. I knew that I was in PR shape. I was hoping for 2:33 to 2:35 range today. I held back and started catching people. Jill and Jenny and I had a great pack, and I always had someone to work with. That made it a fun race.

Running fast is always fun. I will take home a lot of experience from this.

Jill Boaz, marathon

It was a solid race. I tried to run with Turena, who had a terrific first half. I just couldn't push the second half. Running for the USA was awesome. Helsinki was awesome in the way they supported all of us. I'm very happy to be here.

Matt Hemingway, high jump

I had that bad ankle for a while. My first jump in warmups today, it let loose again. It's not what I hoped for, it's frustrating considering that I've had great practices. I was ready to jump high this year. I don't know what the future holds, but we'll go back to the drawing board and try to fix it for next year.

Darold Williamson, 4 x 400 relay

(On being the third) It was different. I don't usually do that too often. It was fun. It was very important (to finish strong). I didn't have a good opening 400. I wanted to run good in this event. We didn't want to let our country down and our fans down.

Derrick Brew, 4 x 400 relay

(On watching Jeremy Wariner) It was relief. We got the stick all the way around. We got the job done. I just wanted to have a win. We have a big group of 400-meter runners. We picked four guys that got it done.

Andrew Rock, 4 x 400 relay

I just wanted to set the tempo for the team, and get the guys going. That's what the coaches told me to do. You never doubt Jeremy. He proved it in the open and he proved it again tonight. When you have Jeremy Wariner running, that's a pretty good feeling. It was a great feeling to see him (run 43.5). It was a great feeling to see him do that and come away with the victory.

Jeremy Wariner, 4 x 400 relay

It showed we are out here competing for the same thing and the same goal. We are fortunate enough to have one our best races this week. I feel real confident. I came into this meet and ran a great open 400 and a great relay. I just can improve on that for the rest of the year. My next race is Zurich. I don't know what is after that. But I do know the Grand Prix final in Monaco.

Craig Masback, USATF CEO

I'm thrilled by the performance and very proud of the team. I think the conditions were obviously challenging when you consider that most of our athletes are from warm-weather climates for them to perform in many cases personal records in what were some challenging conditions is very impressive.

Obviously, it's very gratifying and very energizing to focus on the athletes. That's how all of us in track and field do what we do. We've got a great staff, I think the best staff we've ever had for a national team - that's coaches and managers. We've got a great collegiate program that is obviously doing better than ever at developing talent. I'm proud of my staff and their role in our overall development programs, along with our volunteers. There's no one reason why we did well, it's a lot of different factors and very exciting.

John Smith, Men's head coach

When I come into a championships, I have expectations of everyone doing their best. I didn't count any medals, I wasn't too concerned with counting. I was concerned with people being healthy. As facilitators, we're supposed to minimize things that might fall through the cracks. That's what I was concerned. I knew if we did what we were supposed to do, we'd get close to whatever record count was out there.

The four sweep coming off in the 200 meters, the 1, 2 and 4. I thought Andrew Rock did a wonderful job by pulling himself up by the boot straps and pulling out that third place when he was actually in fourth somewhere. I thought Justin Gatlin did some legendary running. That's going to be remembered for years to come. That young man has taken off and put sprinting into a new era. I was also impressed with how Allen Johnson and Dominique Arnold performed. That was a very tight race, it was always very competitive.

I'm just overall impressed. With the rain that we had and you had two young men come out - I thought what they did in the 400 hurdles is the way it should be. I'm extremely happy with the outcome and looking forward to more.

The main thing we have to do is keep our young people focused on performing and growing up and being good human beings. When you have a lot of stuff thrown your way, we have to make sure they make adjustments, that they understand their responsibility, that they can be accountable for what they do.

Sandy Fowler, Team USA Women's Head Coach

I'm really proud of everybody. The kids did really well. From Tianna Madison winning her gold medal in the long jump, to Lauryn Williams winning gold in the 100 meters after taking the silver in Athens, it's been great.

The night before her race in the finals, Michelle Perry was in my room looking at reaction times. She told me that she had to get a better start to win, and she did!

It's great to see Chaunte Howard win on her first trip to a world championships, and it was wonderful to see Lashinda Demus and Sandra Glover work so well together. It was great to see Glover do such a great job in working with our younger athletes. She was always there with some advice or an encouraging word.

Team USA's future is very bright. All of our younger athletes gained a tremendous amount from spending so much time with our veteran athletes. With that knowledge they now know what to do the next time they represent the U.S. on a national team. They are the future for Team USA, and they have tremendous passion.

Note: The USATF Communications staff wishes to thank Mark Foyer and Paul Merca for all their assistance while in Helsinki.