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Both teams took first place in their first meet of the season at the Fordham Fiasco among fourteen other squads and over 300 runners at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, N.Y.
While the Penn track team will go from racing in front of over 54,000 fans at the Penn Relays to a far smaller crowd at Princeton, N.J., the stakes will be much higher at next weekend’s Ivy League Heptagonal Championships.
Usain Bolt pleased the crowd Saturday, taking just 8.79 seconds to anchor Jamaica’s 4x100-meter team to a record-setting victory in the USA vs. The World event.
Tomorrow evening, a different sort of team will take the track. Runners will be racing not for high school or college pride, but rather as representatives of the companies that employ them.
According to Penn Relays director Dave Johnson, Usain Bolt’s attendance at this year’s Penn Relays is the “biggest international appearance” in 81 years.
Even race walking competitors know their sport can look a little silly. But as they gear up for the Relays, they also know their event requires a mental fortitude unknown to traditional runners.
While just being in the same area code as Bolt is exciting enough, approximately 750 middle and junior high students running for glory at Franklin Field.
For the Penn track and field program and many of its competitors, the Penn Relays is not only an important college competition, but also an opportunity to jump start next year’s recruiting process.
Monday, USA Track and Field announced the relay pools for the USA vs. The World events, which includes several famous Olympians like Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell and Michael Frater.
Saturday wasn’t the first time coach Gwen Harris and the rest of the team heard the sprinters’ rap, but posting three under-25-second 200-meter runners isn’t the result of just a good pump-up song.
Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt announced yesterday that he will again be competing at the Penn Relays in the men’s 4x100 relay as part of the USA versus The World event.