Preview of Women’s 800 Meters at 2013 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships

Montaño, Martinez and Then Who?

by LetsRun.com
June 18, 2013

Here are the leading ten entrants based on 2013 seasonal best time for the women’s 800 at the 2013 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships which gets under way Thursday in Des Moines.

1    1:58.18                Brenda Martinez        
2    1:59.43                Alysia Montaño            
3    2:00.58                Phoebe Wright   
4    2:00.68                Latavia Thomas  
5    2:00.94                Lea Wallace    
6    2:00.98                Laura Roesler  
7    2:01.08                Ajee' Wilson 
8    2:01.11                Geena Gall    
9    2:01.14                Heather Kampf   
10   2:01.52                Chanelle Price

We’ll add in one wild-card name to consider: Maggie Vessey. The 2011 World Championship 6th placer only started her season last week with a 2:03.40 win.

Based on the above list, you should realize it’s very easy for us to pick two of the three team members for Moscow.

Brenda Martinez has been on fire this year. She’s the leader in the US at 800 (1:58.18) and also picked up an ‘A’ standard time in the 1500 of 4:04.86. She will make the team.

By her lofty standards, 2012 Olympic finalist Alysia Montaño was far from impressive at the Prefontaine Classic earlier this month, but she still ran 1:59.43 at Pre and 1:59.43 will make the team.

Alysia Montaño held of Mary Cain at Pre. Can she hold off Martinez at USAs? *More 2013 Pre Classic Photos

Assuming Montaño plays it a little bit safe and doesn’t go out crazy hard (as she often does), she too will make the team. We’re not quite convinced she’s in the same form she was last year (last year she came into the Trials after a 1:57.37 at Pre), so if she goes out in 55.88 like she did at last year’s Olympic Trials, she could conceivably blow up her own Moscow spot but that’s highly unlikely.

‘Who gets the third spot on the World Championship team?’

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That’s a tough question to answer.

If you’d asked us before the Pre Classic, we’d probably have said 19-year old, 2012 World Junior champion Ajee’ Wilson. Wilson went pro after high school last year and was undefeated heading into Pre where she was third in the ‘B’ heat at 2:01.24.

After that, we’re wondering, ‘Is her limit 2:01 flat right now?’ That’s not likely good enough to make the team.

Wilson fans need to hope she just had an off day.

The winner of the Pre ‘B’ heat was Phoebe Wright. Wright is the leading candidate for the third Moscow spot as a result as in addition to Wilson, the Pre ‘B’ race had many of the other contenders for spot #3 including 2012 US Olympian Geena Gall, Latavia Thomas, Lea Wallace and Chanelle Price.

Every contender was actually there except for Heather Kampf and Kampf lost to Wright, Thomas, Wallace and Gall at the USATF High Performance meet.

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As for our ‘wild-card’ Vessey, we don’t know what to expect – that’s why she’s our wild-card. She’s run 1:57 in the past, but it was nearly impossible to predict what she was going to do on a given day when she was in her prime, let alone running her second race of the year at USAs. She’s consistently been inconsistent.

She’s a big-talent, but she didn’t make the team last year at age 30 when she was racing consistently so why would we expect her to make it at 31 in race #2 of the year?

We don’t.

The wild-card, Maggie Vessey.

Quick Take (QT) #1: In the end, spot #3 may come down to Gall, Wright and Wilson – the past, present and future. Gall made the team last year, Wright seems to be in the best current form and Wilson is probably going to make it in the future.

QT #2: As for who wins between Montaño and Martinez, we’re tempted to go with an upset and say Martinez. Martinez did beat Montaño handily at Pre and Martinez can stalk the front-running Montaño, but Montaño was 5th in the Olympics so we’ll stick with her.

QT# 3: If you read our men’s 800 preview, you likely saw our rant about USATF arbitrarily filling out the fields. There just seems to be no logic. You can see more of that here in the women’s 800.

In the men’s 800, they accepted 28. In the women’s, 34 as shown below.

Email us if you see some logic behind this.

2013 Women’s 800m Declarations For the USA Outdoor Track and Field Champs
Name Affiliation Mark Status Declaration
Alysia Montano Asics 1:57.93 qualified declared
Brenda Martinez New Balance 1:58.18 qualified declared
Geena Gall Nike 1:59.24 qualified declared
Phoebe Wright Nike 1:59.72 qualified declared
Maggie Vessey New Balance 1:59.98 qualified declared
Erica Moore Nike 2:00.05 qualified declared
Chanelle Price 2:00.15 qualified declared
Latavia Thomas Nike 2:00.68 qualified declared
Ajee’ Wilson adidas 2:00.91 qualified declared
Lea Wallace Nike / SRA Elite 2:00.94 qualified declared
Laura Roesler University of Oregon 2:00.98 qualified declared
Heather Kampf Asics / Team USA Minnesota 2:01.14 qualified declared
Charlene Lipsey Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge 2:01.70 qualified declared
Kate Grace Oiselle / New Jersey New York Track Club 2:01.78 qualified declared
Shannon Leinert Big River Running Company 2:02.14 qualified declared
Amy Weissenbach Stanford University 2:02.29 qualified declared
Cydney Ross Duke University 2:02.48 qualified declared
Christina Rodgers University of Arizona 2:02.65 qualified declared
Lauren Wallace University of California, Davis 2:02.91 qualified declared
Megan Malasartie University of Georgia 2:03.23 qualified declared
Greta Feldman Princeton University 2:03.34 qualified declared
Bethany Praska 2:03.57 qualified declared
Kelsey Brown Brigham Young University 2:03.95 qualified declared
Rebecca Addison University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 2:04.01 qualified declared
Bienna Freeman Jacksonville University 2:04.08 qualified declared
Stephanie Brown University of Arkansas, Fayetteville 2:04.35 qualified declared
Shelby Houlihan Arizona State University 2:04.38 qualified declared
Brigitte Mania University of Connecticut 2:04.40 qualified declared
Chelsea Cox Georgetown University 2:04.41 qualified declared
Christina Cazzola 2:04.51 qualified declared
Kendra Chambers University of Texas at Austin 2:04.52 qualified declared
Jesse Carlin 2:04.68 qualified declared
Benita Taylor 2:04.72 qualified declared
Nijgia Snapp University of Tennessee, Chattanooga 2:05.00 qualified declared
Amanda Duvendack University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2:05.07 provisional not accepted
Dominique Jackson SRA Elite 2:05.54 provisional not accepted
Kenyetta Iyevbele North Carolina State University 2:06.07 provisional not accepted
Stephanie Herrick Central Park Track Club (CPTC) New Balance 2:06.11 provisional not accepted
Ahlivia Spencer University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2:06.22 provisional not accepted
Nevada Morrison Speed Factory Athletics 2:06.68 not qualified not accepted
Ericka Charles Speed Factory Athletics 2:08.08 not qualified not accepted
Mary Cain Bronxville High School 1:59.51 qualified scratched
Dana Mecke 2:04.43 qualified scratched
Lyndsay Harper Brooks / Bay Area Track Club (BATC) 2:05.21 provisional scratched
Kelsey Williamson 2:06.06 provisional
Katie Hoaldridge University of Texas at Austin 2:06.81 not qualified
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