Anybody have the video of Nick Willis and Alistair Craigg battling in the 3000 at the NCAA championships?
Great race in which Craigg gradually took the legs out of the speedy Willis
Anybody have the video of Nick Willis and Alistair Craigg battling in the 3000 at the NCAA championships?
Great race in which Craigg gradually took the legs out of the speedy Willis
I was there, and it was one of the all-time great collegiate distance races. Cragg was the collegiate record holder that season... until Willis broke it... until Cragg took it back. On Friday night, Willis made easy work of the DMR pulling away easily from a 4 min miler with 400 to go. Cragg was even sicker just destroying Lincoln, Ritz, etc. like it was an easy qualifying heat. After a couple slow laps, Cragg went to the front and surged every 100m or so with the anticipation building. Willis was still there with a lap to go, and it seemed that everyone was waiting for Willis to wind up a kick. Then, on the backstretch Willis's form hitched, he tightened (almost like reading about Walton in OAR), and Cragg was able to keep a couple meters lead to the homestretch where that couple meters distance never really changed while both were fighting for every step. Incredible race.
1. Lincoln had already graduated and wasn't in the 5k, but several other Olympians were and Cragg destroyed all of them.
2. I had Cragg at 5:36 for his last 2200m, after passing 800 in around 2:20ish. It was quite remarkable.
That is correct, one of the best all-time college distance races ever. Both men had held the 3k college indoor record that season. Willis anchored the UM DMR to a victory on Friday night and Cragg won the 5k.
In the 3k on Saturday night, the whole packed jogged through 800m in about 2:20and 1k about 2:54, then at the end of the fifth lap they started hammering of 30's every 200m. For 10 laps Cragg and Willis just went at it. The whole place was going crazy.
The pace was so fast that there wasn't much of a kick from either one, just both trying to hold form to the finish.
It was one of those races where you didn't feel like there was a winner and loser, just an incredible race by both men. The entire crowd realized what a great race it was and even the Arkansas fans applauded Willis. Obviously both men had an incredible weekend of racing.
Men 3000 Meter Run (2004)
1, Alistair Cragg, Arkansas, 7:55.29.
2, Nick Willis, Michigan, 7:56.44.
3, Matt Tegenkamp, Wisconsin, 8:02.82.
4, Robert Cheseret, Arizona, 8:04.28.
5, Ian Dobson, Stanford, 8:04.49.
6, Chris Solinsky, Wisconsin, 8:04.70.
7, Bret Schoolmeester, Colorado, 8:04.84.
8, Simon Bairu, Wisconsin, 8:06.80.
9, Forest Braden, Boise State, 8:06.83.
10, Danny Wolf, Washington St., 8:13.80.
11, Donald Sage, Stanford, 8:16.18.
12, Chris Lukezic, Georgetown, 8:16.23.
13, Chris Emme, Stanford, 8:19.65.
14, Steve Sherer, Michigan St., 8:22.97.
15, Dylan Wykes, Providence, 8:26.80.
--, Jason Woolhouse, Oklahoma St., DNF.
great memories!
any race video?
Those two aren't American. The come from sucky lib pussy countries at that.
ok, i confess im a h8r. But why do these imports come to our country and steal NCAA titles of our hard working american boys! its total BS
lolacoppter wrote:
ok, i confess im a h8r. But why do these imports come to our country and steal NCAA titles of our hard working american boys! its total BS
5 of the 15 finishers were foreign. Blame the coaches who want "developed" athletes.
For the top two (Arkansas -MacDonell; Michigan - Warhurst), they are now retired - so one presumes that this will no longer be a "problem". I would have said Wisconsin too (Shumacker gone as well), but Mick Byrne has a history of this at Iona (He's not American so why not), and has taken in Mo Ahmed (clone of Bairu?).
Another question might be why there are so many foreign coaches in the NCAA? - who therefore might not be averse to taking in foreign athletes. Of course there are many foreign professors as well, but then since any moron can coach, why would it be that ANY non-American can get a job here?!
Franklin (New Mexico, previously Butler) British
Treacy (Providence) Irish
Byrne (Wisco, from Iona) Irish
Santos (Iona) Canada
Watson (North Carolina,from Alabama) Canada
Cleary (West Virginia) Canada
Harvey (Florida State from Illinois) Canada
I'm sure there are many others.
Great race, no doubt, but I still like Goucher's 1998 indoor 3K championship / CR of 7:46, leading from wire to wire, while holding off Lagat who was just sitting on him the whole way. I thought for sure Lagat was going to kick by on the last lap, but Goucher just kept going faster!
Pity Cragg never acheived anything since college.
Christ compels you wrote:
Pity Cragg never acheived anything since college.
Um, he made the final of the 5000m in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.