Dello picked to win gold
8/9/2008 5:00:00 AM | Men's Track and Field, Track & Field
Olympic Track and Field Results
By GARNER ROBERTS
ACU Sports Information
BEIJING, China ? Four current or former Wildcats, three of them with Olympic Games experience already on their resumes, are scheduled to compete in track and field Aug. 15-24 at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing, China.
The four include hurdler Delloreen Ennis London, a 2008 medal contender who was a finalist at the 2000 games in Sydney for Jamaica, and sprinter Wanda Hutson, a current member of coach Don D. Hood's women's track and field team at Abilene Christian University.
Joining them will be two other Jamaicans, hurdler Richard Phillips and quartermiler Marvin Essor.
London is a four-time NCAA Division II champion in the 100-meter hurdles for the Wildcats. The six-time Jamaican national champion was fourth in Sydney in 12.80 seconds, and she reached the semifinals in 2004 in Athens. In formcharts published in recent national publications, she is picked to win a medal.
In the USA Today edition of Friday, Aug. 8, the gold medal pick is London, who was undefeated in NCAA Division II national competition with four indoor hurdles titles to add to her outdoor victories. She is rated ahead of Lolo Jones of the U.S. and Susanna Kallur of Sweden.
Both Track and Field News and Sports Illustrated pick Jones, the U.S. national champion, as the favorite. Track and Field News rates London (silver) and Kallur (bronze) behind Jones, and Sports Illustrated picks Kallur for silver and another American, trials runner-up Damu Cherry, for bronze.
London owns a career best of 12.50, which she ran last year while winning the bronze medal at the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Osaka. Also last year she was third at the IAAF World Athletics Final in Stuttgart.
This summer she won the Golden League meet in Paris in 12.66 on July 18, and she finished second in Rome in 12.62 on July 11 and in Stockholm (12.70) on July 22.
Previously in the IAAF World Championships she was runner-up in 2005 in Helsinki and seventh in 1999 in Sevilla.
Hutson, a student at Abilene Christian last year, will begin her competition for the Wildcats in the 2009 season. She was a member of the 4x100 relay team for Trinidad & Tobago in 2004 in Athens, but the team failed to advance from the qualifying heats. Hutson owns top sprint times of 11.38 in the 100 and 23.65 in the 200, both from the 2004 national championships in Port-of-Spain. Her 11.38 (1.3 wind) from the prelims was a national junior record, and she finished fourth in the final in 11.40.
At the IAAF World Junior Championships, she was fourth in 2004 in Grosseto in 11.45 and eighth in 2002 in Kingston in 11.87. She won the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) junior title in the 100 in 2004 in 11.46, and in 2003 at the Pan American Games junior championships she was third in the 100 and fifth in the 200.
Phillips ran for the Wildcats in 2002 before continuing his collegiate career at George Mason University, NCAA Division I member in Fairfax, Va. His personal best is 13.39 in the 110-meter hurdles in the first round of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens (he was a semifinalist). He is the Jamaican champion this season in 13.57.
In his final year of collegiate competition in 2006, he was Colonial Athletic Association (CCA) and IC4A champion and ninth in the NCAA Division I championships. He missed the 2005 season with injuries.
He was CCA outstanding male track and field performer twice. In 2004 as a junior he was CCA champion and fifth in the NCAA Division I championships, and in 2003 he was CCA champion, anchored George Mason's 4x100 relay team to seventh in the NCAA Division I championships and finished third in the Jamaican championships in the 110 hurdles. In 2002 he was fourth in the hurdles at the IAAF World Junior Championships.
Essor, now a volunteer coach for the Wildcats after completing his collegiate eligibility in 2005, is making his first trip to the Olympic Games as a member of Jamaica's 4x400 relay team. He was NCAA Division II 400 champion both indoors (47.47) and outdoors (personal best of 45.49) in 2005 as a senior, making him the only Wildcat to win both 400 titles in the same year.
Essor won the gold medal at the World University Games in 2005 in Izmir in the 400 (45.99) after finishing eighth in 2003 in Daegu.
The Olympic Games schedule for the four Wildcats (subject to change; Beijing is 13 hours later than CDT in Abilene):
Women's 100 hurdles (London/JAM)
quarterfinals, Aug. 17
semifinals, Aug. 18
final, Aug. 19
Women's 4x100 relay (Hutson/TRI)
semifinals, Aug. 21
final, Aug. 22
Men's 110 hurdles (Phillips/JAM)
first round, Aug. 18
quarterfinals, Aug. 19
semifinals, Aug. 20
final, Aug. 21
Men's 4x400 relay (Essor/JAM)
semifinals, Aug. 22
final, Aug. 23
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