A Glimpse of the US Trials on the Way to Beijing 2008 - Track and Field

The 2008 Summer Olympics that will be held in Beijing, China, are just a few weeks away and in the United States many sports disciplines are in the trials process to determine the athletes that will be part of this year's US delegation, which will be its largest delegation to date and it will be competing in 27 sports.

Track and field is one of the sports disciplines facing the Olympic trials. On the women's side one of the biggest names in the American track this year is Allyson Felix, who won in 22.68 seconds the 200-meter preliminary heat on the night of Friday July 4 and secured her spot in Beijing when she easily run through the final 200-meter sprint and finished first last Sunday 6.

Felix was born in southern California and at her 23 years she has had a very successful career; she has won four gold medals in the IAAF World Championships in Athletics, three of them in a single one last year in Osaka, Japan, when she finished first on 200m, 4x100m relay and 4x400m relay. She also won a silver medal in the 2004 Olympic Games at Athens, Greece. Her personal best record on the 200-meters is of 21.81 seconds, 47 hundredths of a second away from the World Record.

Joining her in the Olympic team will be Muna Lee, who finished second in Sunday's sprint. Lee will be representing the U.S. in the 100-meters sprint as well since she won the first spot earlier this week coming from behind and passing the favorite Torri Edwards and making her best time ever of 10.85.
Marshevet Hooker struggled her way to the final spot to qualify for the Olympic delegation in the 200-meters; she finished third on the sprint even though she crashed across the winning line. Hooker ran the fifth-fastest time ever in the 100-meters first meet last week; however she didn't earn a spot in this category, therefore, winning the spot for the 200m was really important for her.

On the men's side, the top three runners that were able to qualify for the U.S. Olympics in the 1500-meters are three immigrants naturalized in the United States. At the final 1500-meters race of the Olympic trials last Sunday, the Kenyan American Bernard Lagat managed to finish first despite of having to start in Lane 1. Lagat, who had previously won silver and bronze medals at Athens and Sydney respectively for his native Kenya, also won the trials in the 5000-meters and will be representing the United States at Beijing in both events.

In the second place and only 53 hundredths of a second away from Lagat, the second qualifier was the Mexican-American Leonel Manzano, who is a two-time NCAA champion for the University of Texas and has been nationally recognized as a top young middle distance talent.

The third qualifier for the 1500-meters is the 23 year-old Sudan-born American athlete Lopez Lomong. Before the semifinals he had wrenched his left ankle and wasn't able to enter the Olympic Team in the 800-meters since he finished fifth. Lomong's history is very heart-touching; he was kidnapped when he was just 6 years old and jerked into the civil war of his nation and became one of the "Lost Boys of Sudan". He lived in a Kenyan refugee camp for 10 years until it was resettled to the United States in 2001. "I'm dreaming my whole life, Olympics, Olympics, running for the United States," said Lomong last Sunday, after winning the pass to his first Olympic Games.