WTW: Sub-4 Isn’t What It Used To Be, The SEC Meet Was Incredible (As Usual), Josh Kerr 3:48 And Yared Nuguse Comes Up Short

By Robert Johnson
March 2, 2022

Past editions of our Week That Was weekly recap can be found here. Got a tip, question or comment? Please call or text us at 844-LETSRUN (538-7786), email us, or post in our forum.

If you missed our extensive on-site coverage of the 2022 USA Indoor Championships in Spokane, Washington, please catch up here as we don’t really talk about the meet below.

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Last Week by The Numbers

0 – number of conference titles won last week by Notre Dame Olympian Yared Nuguse at the 2022 ACC Indoor Track and Field Championships. Nuguse only the ran the DMR at the meet and he got the baton in an ideal position, in second just .26 off the led. He proceeded to go out in 54 seconds and struggled to maintain form on the final turn, where he stumbled and fell. He got up and finished second in 9:37.10 after splitting 4:00.89 as Virginia Tech got the win after Antonio Lopez Segura split 3:57.43.

𝗗𝗠𝗥 𝗦𝗪𝗘𝗘𝗣 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗛𝗢𝗞𝗜𝗘𝗦 🧹🥇

Antonio Lopez Segura leads his teammates Ben Fleming, Pat Forrest, and Christian Jackson across the line in 9:35.00 to pick up the 𝗔𝗖𝗖 𝗧𝗜𝗧𝗟𝗘 🏆 pic.twitter.com/anmzr4c15D

— Virginia Tech Track & Field (@HokiesTFXC) February 25, 2022

0.5 – number of SEC individual titles won by Matthew Boling last week at the 2022 SEC Indoor Track and Field Championships. The world leader in the 200 this year only ran the 60, where he tied for the win with Florida’s Dedrick Vanover as both ran 6.663. Boling was also 2nd in the long jump (7.90m, 25-11) and split 45.51 on the leadoff leg of Georgia’s 4×400, which won for the first time in school history in 3:02.51.

PHOTO FINISH.

Dedrick Vanover finishes in an exact tie for first and earns the Gators nine points on the board. pic.twitter.com/CbZSfughoC

— Gators Track and Field & Cross Country (@GatorsTF) February 26, 2022

Let me officially state I’m fine with two individuals tying for a title if they ran the exact same time to the thousandth as making them run a race-off isn’t really fair, but the fact that two teams can tie for a team title (which happened in the ACC women’s meet where Duke and Virginia Tech tied for the title with 86 points and in the Northeast Conference women’s meet where Central Connecticut and Fairleigh Dickinson tied with 98) is absurd. Make sure the 4×400 is the very last event to finish and whichever team finishes higher in that should be declared the winner (only if the 4×400 is a tie should there be two team winners). Speaking of the Northeast Conference, Angelia Rafter of Central Connecticut deserves a shout out as she was very key to her team’s co-title as she won the mile, 3k, and 5k and anchored the DMR team to victory.

1 – number of road world records set last week by Ethiopia’s Yalemzerf Yehualaw, who ran 29:14 at the BP Castellón 10K in Spain, destroying Kalkidan Gezahegne‘s old WR of 29:38. David Monti reports Yehualaw, who is also the #2 half marathoner in history at 63:51, will make her marathon debut in Hamburg on April 24.

1 – number of Italian men who have ever broken 60:00 in the half marathon. Yeman Crippa, who was 11th in the Olympic 10,000 in Tokyo, ran 59:26 to get the win at the Napoli City Half Marathon last weekend.

2 – NCAA DII records set by Christian Noble of Lee University at the BU Last Chance last weekend. Noble ran 3:56.10 in the mile and 7:50.98 in the 3000 just 90 minutes later.

Kerr celebrates his 3:48. Via @brooksrunning

3:48.87 – new European record in the indoor mile. That time was put up by Olympic 1500 bronze medallist Josh Kerr at the BU Last Chance meet last weekend. In the same race, American 10,000-meter runner Robert Brandt ran 3:55.70.

6 – number of men that broke 4:00 in the prelims of the men’s mile at the Big 10 Indoor Track and Field Championships last week. 3 did it in heat #1 and 3 in heat #3.

7 – number of Ivy League indoor men’s team titles that Princeton has won in a row after prevailing at last weekend’s Ivy League Heptagonal Indoor Championships. The most number of consecutive outright Ivy League men’s titles in any sport where all eight schools field a team is 8 (accomplished by Dartmouth XC from 1985-92 and the Cornell outdoor track teams that I was a part of from 2003-10).

7:59.02 – time recorded by Nico Young of Northern Arizona University at the Big Sky Meet in the men’s 3000. He won by 23.5 seconds. Since the race was held on a flat track and altitude (Bozeman, Montana — 4926 feet of altitude), the NCAA converts it to 7:41.97, meaning Young has qualified for NCAAs in the event.

Interestingly, Young’s time came from the first (unseeded) heat of the 3000 and he appeared to receive some pacing/encouragement from his lapped teammates in the final meters.

In the FIRST HEAT of the Men's 3K, NAU's Nico Young ran a Big Sky Championship Record of 7:59.01 🤯

…there's still a whole heat to go 👀#ExperienceElevated x #BigSkyTF pic.twitter.com/iYh8VCR1l0

— Big Sky Conference (@BigSkyConf) February 26, 2022

MB: Big Sky mile…wow

8 – number of men who broke 4:00 in the mile in the SEC final on Sunday. We sure hope that Kentucky’s Dylan Allen doesn’t feel too bad for finishing last. He ran a pb of 4:00.24 and finished 10th out of 10.

10 – number of Japanese men that broke 2:09 in the marathon last weekend at the Osaka & Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon over the weekend. 23-year-old Gaku Hoshi got the win in his debut in 2:07:31. That’s extremely impressive for a guy who has pbs of 8:04 for 3k, 28:14 for 10k, and 62:20 for the half.

12 – number of American men that have ever broken 2:09 in marathon.

42:26 – 10k time recorded by 55-year-old Zola Pieterse (née Budd) at the Top Form 10K in Cape Town last week. According to Race Results Weekly, Pieterse still holds the South African records for 1500m (3:59.96), 1 mile (4:17.57), and 2000m (5:30.19), and the world junior records for 1 mile (4:17.57) and 3000m (8:28.83).

96 – number of collegians who have broken 4:00 in the mile this indoor season (counting attitude and flat track conversions). 90 have done it in the D1 ranks, 4 in DII, and 1 in DIII and NAIA.

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Stat of the Week I / The SEC Meet Was Incredible As Usual

46.14 – time Donavan Brazier ran at USA Indoors to place 2nd and book his ticket to World Indoors (though per the Lap Count, Brazier declined his spot in the individual 400 and will only run the 4×400 in Serbia).

46.13 – time run by the last-place finisher in the men’s 400 final at the SEC meet.

We hope by that stat you can tell the sprint action at the SEC meet was remarkable (as was to be expected). The time Brazier ran in the prelims at USAs (46.68) wouldn’t even have qualified him for the men’s 400 final at SECs (last qualifier ran 46.52). The champion of the men’s 400 at SECs was appropriately Champion Allison of Florida, who ran 45.04 — the world’s #2 time in 2022.

Allison wasn’t the only person to run the world’s #2 time to get the win at SECs. That also happened in the men’s 200 (Kentucky’s Lance Lang 20.32) and men’s 800 (Texas A&M’s Brandon Miller 1:45.24). In women’s action, the top two times in the world were put up in the 200 (Kentucky’s Abby Steiner, who set a collegiate and American record of 22.09 and LSU’s Favour Ofili 22.46) and the world’s #3 time won the 400 (Kentucky’s Alexis Holmes 50.77).

Update: I missed a key women’s accomplishment. A coach at one of the top programs in the NCAA read this piece was kind enough to take the time to email me the following, ” In the women’s 4 x 400, the top three women’s teams in the 4×400 broke the collegiate record! Arkansas 3:24.09, Texas A&M 3:25.43, and Kentucky 3:25.89! All faster than Texas A&M’s 3:26.27 from last indoor season with Athing Mu on the anchor. Who would have thought that we would lose Athing and run faster in the 4×4 a year later?”

The Arkansas women (127.5 points) and men (86 points) won the team titles.

More: LRC Donavan Brazier Caps Wild Day By Making World Championship Team in 400m

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