EUGENE, Ore. – Jesse Williams, the reigning world champion in the high jump, finished fourth at the U.S. track trials but still made the Olympic team for London.
Third-place finisher Nick Ross did not have the Olympic “A” standard of 7 feet, 7 inches.
Jamie Nieto finished first in the high jump at Hayward Field on Monday night with a height of 7-5 3/4 . Erik Kynard finished second, followed by Ross and Williams, who all also cleared the height.
Williams, a local favorite as part of the Oregon Track Club elite team, will be joined on the high jump squad by Nieto and Kynard, who also had the “A” standard this season.
Meantime, Stephanie Hightower’s Olympic fate once boiled down to an overblown photo.
The president of USA Track and Field didn’t make the ’84 Olympics squad in the hurdles because of a grainy photo finish after a three-way tie for second at trials that was simply too close to call.
The photo, she said, wasn’t all that telling and she was the odd person out of the mix.
Hightower didn’t have an option back then. She’s glad that Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh at least have that chance now.
The training partners finished in a third-place tie in the women’s 100 meters Saturday.
USATF didn’t have a procedure in place to determine the third and final spot on the Olympic team for the London Games until Sunday.
Now, the options are this: They can either decide who goes to London in the 100 by a flip of the coin or a through a runoff.
“Absolutely, I’d take the runoff,” Hightower told The Associated Press. “But it’s a little bit different for them. That was our only event. These ladies have another event they’re competing in.”
Bobby Kersee, who coaches both sprinters, said Tarmoh and Felix won’t decide anything until after they run the 200, with the final scheduled for Saturday.
That’s all they’re focusing on at the moment.
“All we can do right now is understand what they’re proposing,” Kersee said. “We told them we’re going to focus on the 200 meters and we’ll deal with their proposal after the finish.”
