by Alfonz Juck
World Indoor Championships, Polish team sets WR, takes gold, photo by PhotoRun.netRunBlogRun opines: The new WR that surprised the Polish team last week lasted one week. The Polish team told us last week that their goal had been to regain the European Indoor record set by the Belgian team. Last Sunday, The Polish team added some excitement with their amazing run down on the US team. At the NCAA, three teams broke the WR for 4x400m, but ONLY one gets the WR (because of this nifty little rule about how all four athletes have to be from the same country).
4×400 m Relay World record
COLLEGE STATION (USA, Mar 10): Not only World Indoor record at 400 m by Southern California´s Michael Norman 44.52 (EME NEWS reported about it in the Mar 10 issue) but another WR was registered at the NCAA first division championships. But it was not the winning Southern California in the 4×400 m with fastest ever 3:00.77 but the second placed Texas AM with 3:01.39. The winners with Zach Shinnick (46.24), Rai Benjamin (44.35), Ricky Morgan (45.67) and Michael Norman (44.52) had with Benjamin a runner from Antigua so they did not fulfill the rule about runners from the same country. But second placers from Texas Ilolo Izu (46.57), Robert Grant (44.84), Devin Dixon (45.48) and Mylik Kerley (44.52) were all US runners. Third Florida achieved third fastest ever 3:01.43 but had Nigerian Kunle Fasasi (46.42) with hurdles star Grant Holloway (44.91) and then Jamaican Chantz Sawyers (45.36) and Denmark´s Benjamin Vedel with 44.75 split. All 3 teams were faster than Poland at World Indoors 3:01.77, at that time World Indoor record. In women 4×400 m USC also won with 3:27.45 ahead of Purdue 3:28.82.
