Posted: June 23, 2006

Athletics: Severe Weather Halts U.S. Outdoor Championships

From David Monti

© 2006 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

INDIANAPOLIS (22-Jun) -- Severe thunderstorms, featuring lightning and heavy downpours, forced officials to order the evacuation of the Michael A. Carroll Track & Soccer Stadium at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) twice today, the second time halting competition until tomorrow.

Action was stopped first during the junior portion of the meet in the afternoon, when the stadium had to be evacuated because of dangerous lightning. About one hour of the meet was lost. Organizers resumed the competition, and the cancellation of the preliminary round of the women's 1500m appeared to offer at least some time savings.

But at 7:27 p.m., the stadium announcer advised all in attendance that they needed to leave the stadium as another storm was heading into the area. Many of the athletes, coaches, spectators, officials and media flocked to the parking garage across the street to wait out the storm. The rain began to come down in buckets, accompanied by thunder, lightning and strong winds.

At 9:08 p.m., an official with a bullhorn came into the garage to announce that the meet would be stopped and would resume early in the morning where it had left off, with the men's 100m qualifying. The men's and women's 10,000m finals, originally scheduled for 7:20 p.m. and 7:50 p.m., respectively, tonight, have been rescheduled for 9:05 p.m. and 9:40 p.m., respectively, tommorow night.

Some middle and long distance action did take place before the meet was halted. The preliminary round of the women's 3000m steeplechase eliminated only two athletes, Lucinda Hull and Kara June. Event favorites, Carrie Messner, Lisa Galaviz, Cassie Hunt and Ann Gaffigan all advanced to Saturday's final. In the first round of the men's 800m, defending champion Khadevis Robinson and Jon Rankin led all qualifiers with identical 1:47.47 clockings. David Krummenacker, who lost four places in the last 20 meters of heat 2, was the last man of 16 to advance to the next round, making it by just 2/100ths of a second.

Tomorrow night's women's 10,000m is shaping up as a battle between Katie McGregor (31:21.20 PB), Amy Rudolph (31:18.96 PB) and Sara Slattery (32:21.64). The men's race will feature national record holder and Olympic marathon silver medalist Meb Keflezighi (27:13.98 PB), against Abdi Abdirahman (27:22.81 PB), and Anthony Famiglietti (27:37.74 PB). Jorge Torres will make his debut at the distance and should also be a factor in the race.

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