EUGENE, Ore. — For the quickly forming U.S. Olympic track team, Sunday was as much about the numbers as the names.
One by one, Allyson Felix, LaShawn Merritt and Justin Gatlin crossed the finish line to secure their trips to Rio de Janeiro.
And every time one of those Olympic veterans crossed that line, the numbers on the clock spoke volumes, too. They all qualified with the best times in the world to this point in 2016: Gatlin at 9.8 seconds in the 100, Felix at 49.68 in the women’s 400 and Merritt at 43.97 in that men’s race.
Gatlin’s performance in the 100-meter final will certainly turn the most heads. It’s the same time he posted last year at world championships in Beijing, where Usain Bolt nudged him out by a hundredth. Bolt pulled out of this week’s Jamaican national championships and his form will be a mystery for at least the next few weeks.
Gatlin looks fine, even if he’s destined to head to his third Olympics as an underdog to Bolt, The World’s Fastest Man.
Ashton Eaton will be a favorite. The decathlon world-record holder and defending Olympic champion’s score of 8,750 was nearly 300 short of his world record, but notable because it was one point more than the personal best of anyone who can qualify for the event in Rio.
Besides Eaton, nobody has carried the flag for Team USA’s track team over the past several years than Felix, who has been to three Olympics and picked up six medals, including 200-meter gold in London.
Her quest at Olympics No. 4 is to become the first woman to win gold in both the 200 and 400 meters. That mission landed on shaky ground when she hurt her right ankle this spring while working out. It’s been a brutal comeback, she said, though the performance Sunday hardly showed it.
Pulling away late, she finished the 400-meter final for a .26-second win over Phyllis Francis, then collapsed in exhaustion and relief.
“Two months ago, I couldn’t even walk,” Felix said. “To be here and have everything still come together, I don’t know quite how it happened.”
Merritt certainly does.
Fists pumping down the stretch, he burst down the last 50 meters of the straightaway to finish up a .76-second romp over Gil Roberts. It was a clinic, reminiscent of Merritt’s .99-second blowout over rival Jeremy Wariner in the 2008 Olympics.
“People always say they look at my film to tell their athletes, ‘This is how you’re supposed to run the last part of the race,'” Merritt said. “They haven’t been looking at it lately. I had to give them something to look at.”
Yet another world-best mark came from Chaunte Lowe in the high jump. Her jump of 6 feet, 7 inches beat Vashti Cunningham, daughter of former NFL quarterback Randall, by 1 1/2 inches.
Lowe is on the way to her fourth Olympics, seeking the medal that has always eluded her there. Stoked by her performance, and the others she saw on this breezy, sunshine-filled day in Eugene, she was thinking bigger — not hard to do on a day such as this.
“It felt so easy,” she said. “I think I’ll be ready. Just keep training, fine-tuning. I think we could see a sweep of the podium.”
