Two locals compete beginning today at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships in Sacramento, 2010 Madison graduate, five-time All-American at Utah State and current professional athlete Chari Hawkins and 2016 Shelley graduate LeAnn Larkin, who just completed her freshman year at Utah State.
Eastern Idaho represented at U.S. Outdoor track
Madison grad Chari Hawkins and Shelley grad LeAnn Larkin compete today
By MARLOWE HEREFORD
mhereford@postregister.com
Two track athletes with eastern Idaho roots are among those competing this weekend at the U.S. Outdoor track and field championships in Sacramento.
Chari Hawkins, a 2010 Madison graduate and five-time All-American at Utah State now in her second year as a professional athlete with the Santa Barbara Track Club, competes in heptathlon beginning today and continuing tomorrow while 2016 Shelley graduate and current Utah State athlete LeAnn Larkin competes tonight in the junior women’s 1,500 and 3,000-meter finals.
Hawkins, who qualified for Outdoors with a score of 5,961, begins heptathlon today with the 100 hurdles at 11:45 a.m. Mountain Time. Top three finishers in each event at Outdoors qualify for the International Association of Athletics Federations Outdoor World Championships scheduled for August 4-13 in London if they have not already met the automatic qualifying standard. The end of the qualification window is July 23.
Larkin has a quick turnaround, competing in the 1,500 finals at 6:10 p.m. Mountain Time and the 3,000 meter finals at 6:49 p.m. The 1,500 was turned into a finals only event due to 100-degree heat in Sacramento that prompted meet officials to cancel the prelims originally scheduled for Thursday. The heat also caused several other prelims and finals to get shifted around throughout the weekend. The updated schedule is available here: http://tinyurl.com/y8r5ecfe
Athletes aged 20 and younger can compete in Junior Outdoors. The top two finishers in each event qualify for the Pan Am Junior Championships scheduled for July 21-23 in Trujillo, Peru. Larkin is the first eastern Idahoan to qualify for Junior Outdoors since Elsja Mecham, a current BYU athlete who won eight state track gold medals and set the 4A 100 hurdles state record in two seasons at Rigby before moving to Utah in 2014. Mecham competed at Junior Outdoors in 2014 and 2015. Larkin qualified for Junior Outdoors with a time of four minutes, 32.60 seconds in the 1,500 and 9:53.81 (No. 60 among collegiate women per milesplit.com’s U.S. rankings) in the 3,000.
Junior Outdoor results are available at http://results.usatf.org/2017JrOutdoors/ while all other results are available at http://results.usatf.org/2017Outdoors/. A livetream is available through NBC Sports Gold. Live coverage is also available by following @RunnerSpace_com, @usatf, @dyestat and @nbcolympictalk on Twitter and by searching for the hashtag #USATFOutdoors.