Ten events to watch at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships that start Thursday at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. The top three in most events are in line to make the team for July’s world championships, also in Eugene. Events with reigning world champions or reigning Diamond League season champions who have byes into worlds get four individual spots on the team. Statistics via World Athletics and Tilastopaja.org …
Crouser is on world record watch after breaking it at Hayward last year at Olympic Trials, then repeating as gold medalist with an Olympic record throw. Kovacs, ranked second in the world this season, has a bye onto the team as reigning world champion. Rio Olympian Darrell Hill and Josh Awotunde and Adrian Piperi are also ranked in the top 10 in the world this year, but no more than two of them can make this team, assuming Crouser qualifies.
Richardson won the Olympic Trials, then was disqualified for testing positive for marijuana, ruling her out of Tokyo. She was the world’s third-fastest woman in 2021. Hobbs beat her fellow former LSU star Richardson on June 12, lowering her personal best for the first time in five years. They’re followed in the 2022 rankings by the fastest NCAA sprinters over the last two years — Sturgis, Melissa Jefferson and Twanisha Terry. Brittany Brown, the 2019 World 200m silver medalist, ran 10.66 on April 23, but it was with too much of a tailwind to count as a legal time. Daniels is the lone member of the Olympic trio to break 11 seconds this year (10.99).
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