MIT ATHLETES REVERSE SEEDS AT NATIONALS

McGuire Places 5th in 10,000

May 25-27, 2000

The MIT Men's Track and Field team qualified three individuals for the 2000 Outdoor Championships held at North Central College in Naperville, IL. Two were seeded to score and earn All-American honors, and one was not. Chris McGuire '00, the one not seeded to score, closed his MIT career in style, placing 5th in the 10,000 meter race with a huge personal best of 30:41.98, earning All-American honors. Nikos Michalakis '01, and Sean Montgomery '01, failed to make the finals in their events.

Sean was the first to participate for MIT as the 1500 trials were scheduled for the first day. Sean was in the 2nd of two heats, which would qualify the top 4 from each plus the next 4 fastest times. The first heat was quite slow with the times ranging from 3:55-4:01. Seeded third overall, Sean was willing to sit in the back of the pack and sprint home on the final lap. However, the pace was incredibly slow at 66 for the first 400 and 2:12 at the half. The pack moved during the 3rd quarter as they ran a 61 split. Sean moved to 4th and then dropped back to 7th, unable to keep up. Sean finished with a sub par 3:58.17. After the race both he and his coach came to the conclusion that the slow pace had Sean running flat, taking the strength out of his legs. "He was definitely ready to win it", said Coach Halston Taylor. "He ran 3:50 and 1:52 in the past two weeks and had prepared and rested properly since then".

Later in the evening, with the sun and heat not so intense, Chris took to the track. Seeded 15th, Chris's goal was to place in the top 6, a lofty goal. The pace for the first three miles was quite consistent (4:58, 4:55, 4:57) with no one wanting to take a chance too early. The fourth mile was significantly faster as Colin Young, the eventual winner, picked up the pace, thus stringing out the field. Chris made the move to stay with the 3rd group, consisting of places 5th-8th. His fourth mile was in 4:49, and he was moving up to the 3rd and 4th place runners. The fifth and sixth miles were back around 4:58 pace as the runners were showing signs of fatigue. Chris had moved into a solid group of 4, who were vying for 3rd place. With 3 laps to go, 1 runner dropped from the pack, and with 1 lap to go, the group took off. Chris finished with a 64 final 400 and still got beat by the other two runners, finishing 5th in 30:41.98, a 15 second personal best. His time was good for 3rd on the all time MIT list.

On Saturday, Nikos was up in the Javelin trials. Nikos had flown in the night before as he had some personal matters to attend to. This did not allow for him to get accustomed to the throwing surface or wet conditions. Looking good in his warmups, the feeling was that he would at least match his 5th place finish from 1999. However, on his first attempt, Nikos slipped on the wet surface and fouled what would have been a 200+ throw. On his second attempt, he got a fair throw in, but it was nothing more than that as he again slipped. On his final effort in the trials, he had a pretty good throw, but was not able to "block" very well for fear of slipping again. His best effort of 184-4 did not make finals.

As more and more of the NAIA and Division II colleges migrate towards Division III, the standards for making nationals continue to become more difficult. The NCAA has not raised the number of qualifiers from approximately 16 per event, which is the reason that Sean Montgomery did not make the 800 field, despite his 1:52.20 performance.

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