BAY AREA TRACK CLUB IS BORN

By David Monti
(c) 2010 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved

(LetsRun.com Editor's Note: To read the Bay Area Track Club's press release on themselves, please click here.)

February 23, 2010 - A group of elite athletes and coaches based in the San Francisco Bay Area have recently come together to form the Bay Area Track Club (BATC), the latest group to be recognized by USA Track & Field as a USA Distance Center.  The says it has two main goals: to provide support for Olympic athletes and emerging elites, and to promote running, health, and fitness within the community.

"Our vision is much greater than supporting a small group of elite runners," explained BATC president Tony Kauke in a statement.  "We really want to support a health and fitness movement, a running movement, across the Bay Area for people of all ages and abilities."

The BATC's members have represented the United States in international competition 19 times, and includes national champions and even an international medallist, Shannon Rowbury.  Rowbury, a San Francisco native who still lives and trains there, was one of the key people behind setting up the group.

"The idea of a post-collegiate group in the Bay Area is something I and many other local elite runners have dreamed of for a long time," she said through a media release.  "To be the best athlete I can be I need a training group.  More importantly though, having grown up in the Bay Area, it is important that I give back. The BATC’s community programs will provide me with the opportunity to have a great impact on youth fitness."

The club's current roster includes four Olympians: Rowbury (1500m), Blake Russell (marathon), Magdalena Lewy Boulet (Marathon) and Bolota Asmerom (5000m).  Other members include aspiring Olympians David Torrence (1500m/3000m), Garrett Heath (1500m), Alysia Johnson (800m), Jon Rankin (1500m), Clara Horowitz Peterson (5000m/road), Tom Kloos (steeplechase), Francis Gadayan (800m), and Peter Gilmore (marathon).  The club also has a foreign member, Briton Tim Bayley (1500m).

Several of the club's members will be competing in the USA Indoor Championships this weekend in Albuquerque, N.M., led by Rowbury, who won the national women's 3000m indoor title in 2008, and Torrence, the defending national men's 3000m champion.

ENDS

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(LetsRun.com Editor's Note: To read the Bay Area Track Club's press release on themeslves, please click here.)

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