(30-May) -- Officials from adidas announced today that USA 800 meter runner Robby Andrews had been signed to an endorsement contract. The 21 year-old, originally from Manalapan, N.J., but now living and training in Charlottesville, Va., was the 2011 NCAA 800m champion and the 2010 IAAF World Junior Championships bronze medalist.
Adidas officials said that Andrews had received a "long-term deal," but no specifics were announced.
"I'm really excited to have signed with adidas," Andrews said in a brief telephone interview with Race Results Weekly. "I can't wait to represent the company. I'm just really excited. A lot of running to do, obviously, but I hope that this sponsorship will help me achieve the results I want to achieve."
Last March, Andrews signed a professional management contract with Flynn Sports Management of Gray, Tenn., forgoing his remaining NCAA eligibility. He said at the time that leaving the NCAA ranks would give him his best chance of making the 2012 USA Olympic Team.
"When you boil it all down, I have a goal," Andrews told Race Results Weekly last March. "I still have it, to make the Olympic team. I just didn't feel my situation at the University of Virginia was going to help in that process."
Andrews said today that he would still be coached by his former university coach, Jason Vigilante, and that his first race in adidas kit would be a low-key 800m in New Jersey this weekend, before competing in the adidas Grand Prix in New York on June 9. There he will face the world's two best 800m runners, Kenya's David Rudisha and Sudan's Abubaker Kaki, who won gold and silver, respectively, at last summer's IAAF World Championships in Athletics.
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