Centrowitz cruises to victory in 1,500 final
Broadneck graduate will follow his father’s path as two-time Olympian
EUGENE, ORE. — One night before his big race, Matthew Centrowitz was joking with his father, who until Sunday held sole possession of the family record for making Olympic teams.
“He was a two-time Olympian. I am now. He can’t really hold that over my head,” Centrowitz said Sunday night, shortly after winning the men’s 1,500-meter race at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials. His father, Matt Centrowitz, is the longtime coach at American who was a member of the 1976 and 1980 U.S. Olympic squads.
The younger Centrowitz, a Broadneck graduate, set a trials record, crossing the finish line in 3 minutes, 34.09 seconds, which was good enough to beat secondplace Robby Andrews (3:34.88). Ben Blankenship was third with a time of 3:36.18.
“WhenI finished and saw howfast it was, I was pretty stoked. ... It’s neat now that the rest of trials people will be running you’ll see my name there until someone takes it down,” said Centrowitz, 26.
Centrowitz finished second at the trials four years ago and then placed fourth at the 2012 Olympics.
“I feel old saying this, but it just seemed like yesterday that I was in London. These four years just kind of flew by. I wouldn’t say
it’s redemption going back, trying to get a medal. It’s a different year, a different competition. I’m a different athlete than I was four years ago. But I’ll definitely have that fourth place in the back of my mind going into Rio.” McLaughlin turns heads: Fortunately, there are plenty of flights that go from New Jersey to Brazil, and Sydney McLaughlin won’t have to worry about driving.
Just 16 years old and still without a driver’s license, McLaughlin finished third in the women’s 400-meter hurdles, making her the youngest member of the American squad.
Her time of 54.15 was1.27 seconds behind first-place finisher Dalilah Muhammad; she surprised even herself by making the Olympic team. The Rio Games, she said, were “just a dream in the back of my mind.”
“I was like, yeah, okay, I’m going to the trials, but it’s not going to happen,” she said. “It was never really on my radar.”
McDonogh graduate Autumne Franklin, a rising senior at Harvard, finished sixth with a time of 54.65 seconds. Felix misses chance at double: Sprinter Allyson Felix missed out on a spot running both the 200 and 400 in Rio. She finished fourth in Sunday’s 200 final, just one- hundredth of a second away from the podium.
Tori Bowie won the race with a time of 22.25, followed by Deajah Stevens (22.30) and Jenna Prandini (22.53). Felix, who had already qualified in the women’s 400, finished in 22.54 and will compete in only one individual race in Rio.
“This whole year, that had been what I’m working for,” she said. “To end here it’s disappointing, but then to look back and see everything that happened, I still think it’s amazing that I was able to make this team.” Profit, Brown fall short of Rio: Kiani Profit, a former three-time All-American at Maryland, finished 17th out of 20 competitors in the women’s heptathlon final. Profit, who entered Sunday in 20th place needing to reach 6,150 points for automatic qualification, finished 17th in long jump, eighth in javelin and seventh in the 800-meter run for a total of 5,629 points.
In the women’s pole vault final, McDonogh and San Diego State graduate Kristen Brown placed eighth with a 4.5-meter vault. Jenn Suhr topped the standings with a 4.8-meter vault, Sandi Morris was second at 4.75 meters, and Alexis Weeks (4.70) rounded out the top three.