Scott stars with record throw for gold medal at US indoor athletics

FAYETTEVILLE: Trinidad and Tobago’s Candice Scott emerged one of the stars when the international face of college track and field lit up on opening night at the NCAA Indoor Championships. The University of Florida student was among athletes from Jamaica, South Africa and New Zealand who had record-breaking performances. Scott regained her NCCA Division One women’s 20-pound weight throw in a keen tussle with schoolmate Kim Barrett in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The Trinidadian established a new collegiate American record with a 23.05-metres throw which was better than her previous best of 23.0m. Barrett was second in 22.95m with Georgia’s Jenny Dahlgren third in 22.03m.

Scott, recently crowned WITCO 2003 “Sportswoman of the Year” cleared 22 metres five times to regain the championship she last held two years ago. She did not participate last year because of a back injury. Jamaican Veronica Campbell of Arkansas also broke a collegiate record with the world’s fastest 200 metres this year. Campbell won in 22.43 seconds on Friday night on her home track, edging Sanya Richards of Texas, whose 22.49 clocking is the world’s second-fastest time this season. “This is a big year,” Campbell said. “The focus of this year is to win an Olympic individual medal. I’ve got a silver relay medal, but I’d really like to get an individual one.” LSU’s Muna Lee, the two-time defending champion who set the collegiate record on the same track a year ago, was a distant fifth in 22.87. 

Lee said the three races in one day — a 60 preliminary, a 200 prelim and the 200 final —- wore her down. Campbell, a bigger, more muscular runner, seemed fine. South African Alistair Cragg of Arkansas became the first athlete to win three consecutive 5,000 titles. Cragg, who competes internationally for Ireland, won in 13 minutes, 39.63 seconds. Ian Dobson of Stanford was second at 13:40.91. Cragg defended his 3,000 title yesterday. He’s the collegiate record holder in the event. New Zealander Kim Smith, in her first season running for Providence, broke the collegiate 5,000 record set 13 years ago by Ireland’s Sonia O’Sullivan.

Smith lapped all of her competitors except one to win in 15 minutes, 14.18 seconds, more than three seconds faster than O’Sullivan’s mark of 15:17.28 for Villanova in 1991. Leo Bookman of Kansas repeated as men’s 200 champion in 20.42 seconds, the fastest in the world this year on a 200-metre track. Kenneth Baxter of Purdue was second at 20.57, two-thousandths of a second better than Kyle Farmer of Florida. Tyson Gay of Arkansas, who had a 20.40 clocking on an oversized track at the SEC championships, faded to fifth at 20.58. The favoured and defending champion Arkansas men led in the team competition with 23 points through seven of 17 events at the Randal Tyson Track Centre. Texas and Florida tied for second with 21, followed by Purdue with 13. The defending champion LSU women had a few setbacks, but still seemed poised for a strong run yesterday. Florida and UCLA tied for the lead with 29 points. Georgia had 26 and Florida  23 1/2. LSU was tied with Stanford for fifth with 16. (AP)