2013 CAMP DATES AND LINEUP ANNOUNCED!

Camp Director, Lisa Owens, is happy to announce the 3rd Annual MAXIMUM VELOCITY TRACK AND FIELD ACADEMY will be held at Centre College on Wednesday, June 12th through Saturday, June 15th, 2013. Once again, the camp's featured clinicians will be 4 time Olympian, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and 1984 Olympian, 2008 & 2012 US Olympic Team Assistant Manager, Sharrieffa Barksdale. 

Guest clinicians will include some familiar faces to the Academy:

Ato Boldon will once again be working with the sprinters. Boldon is a 4-time Olympian, and current analyst for NBC, ESPN, and Universal Sports.


1992 Olympic champion, and current world record holder in the 400m hurdles, Kevin Young will be returning to work with the hurdlers again this year.

Jeff Harwig will be back for his 3rd consecutive year working with the pole vaulters. Jeff is a 4-time national champion, former US indoor and outdoor record holder, and 2 time Olympian.

Coming off his fourth national championship at the US Trials, and a 6th place performance at the 2012 Olympics, Jamie Nieto will be working with the high jumpers.

New to the lineup of clinicians this year will be: 

Walter Davis will be working with the long and triple jumpers. Davis is a 2-time world champion, and 2004 Olympian. He finished 3rd in the US Olympic Trials in 2012, and announced his retirement from competitive triple jumping after the meet. Davis has PR's of 27' 5 1/4" in the long jump, and 58' 2" in the triple jump.


Rose Monday will be working with the middle-distance and distance runners. Monday was an assistant coach for the 2012 US Olympic team, and is nationally recognized as one of the top minds in middle-distance and distance running. She competed in 4 US Olympic Trials, and currently coaches middle-distance standout, Maggie Vessey.

 Reedus Thurmond will be working with the throwers this year.  Thurmond is a 3-time All-American, and 2-time US Olympic Trials qualifier.  He was the throws coach at the University of Washington for 6 years, coaching 11 All-Americans. He now coaches elite athletes, most notably his wife, 4-time Olympian Aretha Hill Thurmond.

Please see the About the Clinicians tab for complete bios of this year's clinicians.

New this year is our partnership with the Bluegrass State Games.

 In the past, we have concluded camp with a mock track meet to give our campers a chance to compete, and to put to use the new knowledge they have attained. This year our camp will conclude with a real track meet as we partner with the Bluegrass State Games which will be held at Centre College on Saturday, June 15th. Our campers will receive a Bluegrass State Games t-shirt, and compete for medals at no additional cost. This will be a great way to finish off what is sure to be 3 1/2 days of track and field fun that you will remember for the rest of your life!

Olympians groom track youths at Centre

World record-holder Kevin Young, right, and campers watch as former American record-holder Sharrieffa Barksdale demonstrates a hurdles drill. (Mark Maloney photo)

The second annual Maximum Velocity Track and Field Academy wrapped up Friday at Centre College in Danville.
With Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Dusty Jonas, Kevin Young, Dave Wottle, Francie Larrieu-Smith, Erin Gilreath, Jeff Hartwig and Ato Bolden, plus former Kentucky football player/Bryan Station jumper Littleton Ward, Maximum Velocity continues to grow its reputation for having a staff filled with Dream Teamers.

Four-time Olympic medalist Ato Bolden demonstrates start technique. (Maloney photo)

The camp founder is pleased to see the camp growing and the Olympians continuing to help.
“Oh, my goodness — yes, yes, yes!” said Lexington’s Sharrieffa Barksdale, a 1984 Olympian and former American record-holder in the women’s 400-meter hurdles. “To have this caliber of track and field camp and to have this type of Olympians come … it’s phenomenal.”
Barksdale says the Olympians are willing to come to Central Kentucky because “we have a camaraderie. When you have that type of friendship and camaraderie, it’s hard to say no to me. It really is.” She doesn’t often take “no” for an answer.
Although the camp continues to take baby steps in growth, Barksdale would like to see a giant step. That will take a push from high school coaches to encourage, inform and maybe even help with fund-raising for their athletes, she says.
“When you have this type of Olympians that are coming into the state of Kentucky, you should have every kid here, trying to get them to learn from the best,” she said. “You can’t get no better than this.”

Mark Brummett

Barksdale has a believer in Rockcastle County Coach Mark Brummett, who was on hand to soak up as much knowledge as possible. His state-champion discus thrower, Amy Johnson, was among the camp participants, and he’s hoping to bring “a whole lot more” next year.
“I love it. I wish we had more Kentucky athletes here,” he said. “I think it’s a great opportunity. The Olympians are amazing. I don’t think our kids realize having Jackie Joyner-Kersee at our camp is the equivalent of having Michael Jordan for a basketball camp. … They work on so many different facets of everything. I spent just a few minutes with Ato Bolden and learned a whole lot that my program needs to work on for starting blocks and things. Just the fact that they’ll come and do a camp here — there’s nothing like it in the United States that I’ve seen. I’ve looked at some other camps and you might see a couple of Olympians, but the level and degree, the magnitude of these Olympians is amazing.”
We caught up with several of the Olympians.

Jeff Hartwig

The former American record-holder in the pole vault, indoors and outdoors, Hartwig competed in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.

Jeff Hartwig instructs pole vaulters. (Maloney photo)

He made his first tour at Centre in 2011, so he knew what he was in for this week.
“Last year, when I came down … you just don’t know what to expect,” he said. “And, to be honest, I’d never really heard of Centre College. Boy, I’ll tell you, the campus is beautiful, the facilities are outstanding and Lisa Owens — the coach here — just did an outstanding job of taking care of all the details for us, the camp staff, to make sure that we can contribute our knowledge to the young athletes in a positive way.
“I was really impressed with how good the kids were last year and how well the camp is run, so I had looked forward to coming back.”
So what can an Olympic athlete get across to a teen athlete in just a few days?
“When I was a young athlete, I didn’t have the benefit of getting the chance to work with anybody who had either competed at a high level or had a high level of knowledge,” Hartwig said. “Probably the biggest frustration for me when I got into college was having to ‘un-learn’ all the things that I learned incorrectly from the beginning.
“I always thought as I started to become a student of the event, as my career progressed, ‘one day I want to give back to kids because if I can get them started in a better direction right from the beginning, they have a much better chance of success.’ Because it’s hard enough to learn how to do it correctly, but then when you have to un-learn all the things that you do incorrectly before you can work on those things to move you forward, it makes it twice as hard.”

Kevin Young

A U.S. Track & Field Hall of Famer, Young ran a still-standing world-record 46.78 seconds to win gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.

A necklace displays Kevin Young's world-record hurdles time. (Maloney photo)

Not that he’ll ever forget the time — the first to break the 47-second barrier — but he has a constant reminder thanks to a necklace that was presented to him by a friend.
Young, 45, has agreed to participate July 7 in an all-day hurdles festival in France — commemorating 25 years of the festival and 20 years since his world-record race.
Young, who lives in Kennesaw, Ga., near Atlanta, has his eye set on eventually getting the masters (age 40-over) world record of 55.18.
“I believe that if I train consistently, I should be able to break it,” Young said. “I wanted to do it this year. But I had these injuries — I have a lingering Achilles’ soreness, which was a lot worse a few weeks ago, and I’ve got a little nagging hamstring injury with scar tissue. But I feel I can get out there and finish the race and have a good time, and have fun.”
Young said he made debut on the international scene in the 1986 Goodwill Games, held in Moscow. Barring injuring setbacks, his dream is to qualify for the 2013 World Championships, which will be held in Moscow.
“I think I can get an ‘A’ qualifier,” he said. “I’m not necessarily trying to set the world on the fire, but I would like to get an ‘A’ standard qualifier. At least a ‘B’ standard qualifier, which is like … 49.5. If I get into that range, it will be a masters record, plus I can scare a lot of these young hurdlers. Like ‘the old man can still do it.’”
He says his experience at Centre helped him in his training. But that was an added benefit to the joy of being a mentor.
“The beauty of being here at the camp is the fact that you see them come out here as raw as they possibly can be, you give them a few instructions, show them some drills, give them some encouragement, let them know that the word ‘can’t’ isn’t used out here and, within five-10 minutes, a totally different person,” Young said. “They’re handling it. And they’re knocking things out of the park.
“I just pat myself on the back each and every time it happens. I’ve got a number of kids that are doing that, making me look good as a coach. And they can take home with them that they trained with the world record-holder, literally hung out, had lunch at the table with him. We went through what you need to do to prepare yourself for college, prepare for all the different changes in your routines from high school to college.”

Dave Wottle

Dave Wottle

A U.S. Track & Field Hall of Fame member and the 1972 Olympic gold-medalist at 800 meters, Wottle will turn 62 in August. He lives in Germantown, Tenn., and retired June 1 after 29 years at Rhodes College, where he was dean of admissions and financial aid.
At Munich, his roommate was marathoner Frank Shorter. As it happened, Wottle and Shorter were the last two Americans to win track gold medals at the 1972 Games.
Wottle won his medal three days before Palestinian terrorists infiltrated the Athletes Village, an event that would lead to the death of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches. Shorter, though, had not yet run.
“You couldn’t really focus that much on what was going on. I always say that was kind of a surreal feeling,” Wottle said. “Because very shortly after (International Olympic Committee president) Avery Brundage announced the Games would continue. Well, as soon as they said that, the athletes had to in a sense blank that out of their mind and focus on their events.
“Frank’s event was after the incident, so he had the marathon he had to run. You just can’t be thinking about two things. So we kind of said, ‘well, we’ll park it in the back of our mind and we’ll reflect on it after the Games.’ It sounds kind of cold and hard-hearted, but that’s really what you had to do. And that’s what most of us were able to do.”
Although Shorter was bewildered when he entered the Olympic Stadium. Unbeknownst to him, an imposter had slipped in ahead, pretending to be the marathon winner. The crowd quickly realized that the runner was a fake and responded with “Boooooo!”
“I think those German guys beat the crap out of that guy,” Wottle said, half-seriously, of the imposter. “They should have.”
Another Wottle-Shorter story from Munich involved a pair of shorts.
Wottle, married shortly before the Games, was among the last to pick up his uniform.
“Of course, no one takes the uniform they signed up for, so they had a pair of extra-extra-large shot put pants for my Olympic uniform,” Wottle said. “I go ‘I can’t wear these.’ I did not have any other shorts.
“Frank ran for the Florida Track Club, which had some light blue pants. He goes, ‘well, you can wear these; these are close enough. And if you win, you can have them.’ He’s like ‘I’ll get these back in a couple days.’”
Of course, Wottle won. Wearing his golf cap and Shorter’s shorts. Both clothing items were displayed in the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame before either athlete was inducted.
Said Wottle: “I always tell people the hat beat me into the Hall of Fame and Frank Shorter’s shorts beat him into the Hall of Fame.”
See kentucky.com and The Herald-Leader for some more of Wottle’s tales from the Munich Olympic Games.

Olympic Athletes Train Students In Danville

Click To See ABC 36 WTVQ's Coverage of the Academy

Picture this: Kentucky students learning physical fitness from Olympic athletes.

It's happening this week at Centre College in Danville. The Maximum Velocity Track and Field Academy teaches students proper techniques for various athletic events. Several former olympic athletes are there, including world-record holder Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who's impressed with the event, and with Centre College.

"I think it's a hidden jewel. I think this college is very impressive, and it's great to have young people who have never even been on a college campus to really experience college campus life," Joyner-Kersee told ABC 36 News.

This is the second year for the camp. 

Track & field: Former Olympian Barksdale says Kentuckian Gay will win at Olympic trials

By MIKE MARSEE marsee@amnews.com

11:37 p.m. EDT, June 16, 2012

Tyson Gay didn’t make it back to Danville this year, but the woman who helped bring him to the Maximum Velocity Track and Field Academy in 2011 said fans of the sport will be seeing plenty of him in the coming weeks.
Sharrieffa Barksdale, a former U.S. Olympic hurdler and one of the organizers of the camp at Centre College, said she thinks Gay will win the upcoming Olympic trials and “be a force to be reckoned with” at the London Olympics later this summer.
Never mind that the Kentucky sprinter has raced only once in nearly a year. Barksdale said she saw and heard enough from that race earlier this month to convince her that Gay is back.
Gay has been rehabilitating a surgically repaired right hip, and he returned to the track June 9 at the Adidas Grand Prix in New York to run a “B” race in the 100-meter dash into a headwind in 10.00 seconds.
Barksdale, a friend of Gay’s and a manager for the U.S. Olympic track and field team, said her assessment of that race and an exchange of text messages with Gay convinced her that the Lexington native can be one of the best in the world again.
“I think after seeing Tyson run ... at the Adidas meet, Tyson is ready to show up and show out,” Barksdale said. “I think that he’s going to surprise a lot of people, because I think a lot of people they have doubts that he can come back. And I say that if Tyson stays healthy and makes all those rounds (at the trials), he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with.”
She said Gay had his own doubts before the New York race, even though he said he felt strong enough to run well.
“He was saying that particular race meant everything to him, because in his mind, he was saying, ‘Can I really do it? But I went out there and I did it, so I know that I am ready,’” Barksdale said. “The race ... at the Adidas meet was a big burden lifted off of Tyson’s shoulders.”
Gay will need to finish in the top three at the U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene, Ore., where the preliminaries, semifinals and finals will be contested in a span of about 24 hours beginning Saturday.
Barksdale said she’s convinced that he can do even better than that.
“He’s about to blow a lot of people’s minds. Because he hasn’t raced in an entire year, and he had surgery after surgery, it’s in a lot of people’s minds, ‘Can he come back? Can Tyson Gay do that and represent not only the state of Kentucky but the U.S.A. team?’ And I think that he can do that. I think that he will be on the Olympic team,” Barksdale said. “In fact, I’m going to go on and say he will win the Olympic Trials.”
It won’t be easy. Three Americans have already broken the 10-second barrier this season, including former Olympic gold medalist Justin Gatlin.
“He’s back and I’m so proud of Justin,” Barksdale said. “I think that this year, the United States will go over there to London, and we’re going to bring back a lot of medals.”
Gay, who holds the American record in the 100 with a time of 9.69 set in 2009, told The Associated Press last week that he thinks it will take a 9.8 to make the team that will compete in London beginning Aug. 3.
“He’s going to leave it on the track. His little feet are going to go as fast as his hands can go,” Barksdale said.
Barksdale said she thinks Gay will benefit by coming into the trials — and the Olympics if he qualifies — without the high expectations he carried when he was at the top of the sport.
“Now he’s going as an underdog. No one’s really looking at him like they did before, and that’s good, because everybody’s not focused on him,” she said.
She said Gay did, however, generate a great deal of discussion around the Kentucky track community after his performance last weekend.
“Everybody tweeted, everybody was on Facebook, Myspace, saying, ‘He’s back.’ That’s the thing about Kentucky and all the positive people. They were just so happy and so proud that he was out there and back, just back,” Barksdale said.
She said a successful summer might even allow Gay to extend his career.
“I think he wants it bad enough. I think if — not if, but when — he makes the team ... and does very well and gets a medal in London, he will come back next year,” she said.
Gay was arguably the biggest draw at the Centre camp last year, and Barksdale noted that he took the time to pose for a photograph with all 169 campers, even in 90-degree heat.
“He did not grumble, he did not say one word,” she said. “He’s the most respectful young man that you will ever come across.”
But she said it was too much to ask of Gay and the other potential Olympians to return this year with the trials so close at hand.
“We wouldn’t expect them to come down here and do this camp two weeks out (before the trials), because that’s being very selfish of us,” Barksdale said.

Copyright © 2012, AM News

Track & field: Work at Centre camp part of former sprinter Boldon's diversification

Ato Boldon works with sprinters at the Maximum Velocity Track and Field Academy

By LARRY VAUGHT larry@amnews.com

11:22 p.m. EDT, June 16, 2012

Ato Boldon considers the 100-meter dash the “sexy event” in track and field and is proud that he won four Olympic sprint medals — a record for any male athlete.
He was second in the 100-meter dash at the 2000 Olympics and third in the 200-meter dash. Four years earlier at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta he was third in both the 100 and 200. He also won four medals at the World Championships, including a gold in the 200 in 1997, and one Pan American Games medal.
Boldon retired with a personal best time of 9.86 seconds in the 100 and 19.77 seconds in the 200.
Boldon, 38, was born in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, to a Jamaican mother and Trinidadian father. He came to the United States when he was 14 and while playing soccer at Jamaica High School in Queens, N.Y, high school track and field coach Joe Trupiano noticed his sprinting abilities and steered him to a career in track.
At 18, Boldon represented Trinidad and Tobago in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, but did not qualify in the first round of either event. Boldon returned to the junior circuit, winning the 100 and 200 titles at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Athletics in Seoul to become the first double sprint champion in World Junior Championships history.
He was also an NCAA champion at UCLA in 1995 in the 200. He won the NCAA 100 in 1996 in the final race of his collegiate career, setting an NCAA meet record of 9.92 seconds that still stands. He held the collegiate 100 record of 9.90 from 1996 until it was broken by Travis Padgett (9.89) in 2008.
Boldon was seriously injured in a head-on crash with a drunk driver in July of 2002 and never again ran sub-10 seconds in the 100-meter dash or sub-20 seconds in the 200, something he had done on 37 separate occasions. The accident left Boldon with a serious hip injury, and curtailed his career.
He competed in his fourth Olympics in 2004 at Athens, but failed to advance out of the first round of the 100.
After retiring from his running career, he was an opposition senator in the Trinidad and Tobago parliament and is now an NBC-TV analyst for track and field.
He spent three days in Danville last week at the Maximum Velocity Track and Field Academy and shared these thoughts on a variety of subjects:

Question: When you look back on your record-setting career where only two men (Franie Fredericks and Carl Lewis) have won as many Olympic individual sprint medals (four) as you, are you disappointed that you didn’t win a gold medal?
Boldon: “It doesn’t eat at you, but sprinters by nature have to be perfectionists. That time has come and gone for me. When I get around a Kevin Young or Jackie Joyner-Kersee, I wonder if they feel any different having an Olympic gold medal. Of course, the answer is always no and no different feeling when your career over no matter what medals you have. I can’t really think about it or let it bother me.
“But you have to remember in sports and life, it’s not a question of looking at what you don’t have. It’s more important to look at what you do have. It’s not lost on me that there is nobody in history that can say they have more (Olympic sprint medals). There are two tied with me, but nobody can say they have more, and that is something I am very proud of and my country is very proud of.”

Question: What made you such a good sprinter, especially since you were a soccer player and not a track athlete as a youngster?
Boldon: “I was a soccer player up until my senior year of high school. I dabbled a little bit in track and field when I first moved from the Caribbean to New York, and then I went to San Jose, Calif. I was doing soccer primarily and track kind of feeling my way.
“I was on a really bad soccer team my senior year and the way it was explained to me was, ‘Don’t you want more control over the outcome?’ That was it for me. I wanted to know if I do all the work at least I can be responsible for what the end result is. I was discovered playing soccer in New York.
“I was 16 when I got discovered (for track) and by 18 I was in the Olympics. It helps that I ran for a very small country. That would not happen to an American 16- or 18-year-old runner. There is that one caveat. But it was a question of when I talked to the guy who discovered me he said if I saw what he saw on the soccer field, you could see it.
“It’s like somebody had to see Usian Bolt playing cricket somewhere in Jamaica and know what he should be doing. A lot of times you hear athletes talk about that, especially if they get discovered out of another sport, that somebody had to see it and that’s what happened to me. My high school coach in New York saw it and said, ‘Trust me, you are a sprinter.’”

Question: You career has been so diversified, talk about politics and other things you have done and how you were able to do all this?
 Boldon: “I was raised by parents who did not believe in limiting their children. My mother’s philosophy is raising children is like flying a kite. If you hold the strings too tightly, they do nothing interesting.

“My mother allowed me a little bit of free rein to try things and be involved in a lot of different things. I am not quite 40 yet, and I have been a politician, I have been a world champion sprinter, I have been an Olympic medalist, I am a private pilot. That is my philosophy on life, and I try to share that with the kids I talk to all around the planet. Don’t just focus on that one thing. You are going to like you life a lot more if you have several different interests.
“I coach football players now. I have an entire business which is based on getting the top college players ready for the combine. Pat Peterson is my top client. The lesson in that is do not be afraid to try things. A lot of kids I talk to don’t think they will be good at something. So you are not going to try? Never?
The first day when those football combine guys thought about hiring me and gave me a presentation, I told them they did not need me. They said they did and said, ‘Trust me, with that short 40-(yard-dash) at the combine that everybody has to run, which can make a difference between first and third round, we need you more because you are going to be the difference and teach those guys how to be efficient running.’ I had to listen.”

Question: What is it like working with Lexington native Tom Hammond on NBC?
Boldon: “That is actually a funny story because I have been working with him since 2007 and obviously (Lexington native) Tyson Gay has been a big part of a lot of our broadcasts. After about a year I said to Tom, ‘Why is it that you introduce Tyson Gay’s high school and not anybody else’s high school?’ He went, ‘Yeah, because I went to the same high school.’ Now I understand the Lafayette High School connection.
“But Tom is a pretty big deal everywhere. He is an amazing person and pretty much the best there is. Everybody knows Tom is a great guy, but I got a chance to see it firsthand. Tom gave me a lot of confidence by letting me be me.
Tom’s greatest gift in his job is that he adapts to whoever sits next to him. He will work with people in basketball, horse racing; he works with me. Everybody is different, but somehow Tom finds a way to just let the person who is doing the color analysis do their thing and he does his thing. It’s hard to describe, but he’s the best at it.”

Question: How much do you enjoy the TV work?
Boldon: “I don’t work because they say if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. I retired at 30, and even then I retired from being a world class sprinter. I have never had a job. I tell people that all the time, everything I have ever done I wake up in the morning and it is like, ‘Oh yes, I get to do ...’ and just fill in the blank.
“I woke up today and I get to change the form of 100 kids today. If you looked at my kids today before they started and what they look like now, it doesn’t look the same. That is the most rewarding thing I can do, even more than being on TV or winning a medal.
“If in 15 years from now and these kids are running at the U.S. Olympic trials and they say it turned around for me the day I worked with Ato Bolden in Danville, Ky., then I have accomplished something.
“I don’t feel like I work. Some days I say I am robbing NBC. I get to come out to the best meets in the world — the Olympic trials, the world champioinships, the Olympics — and I get to talk about something I really enjoy. The public seems to enjoy it and the critics seem to like me, and somebody writes me a check. You can’t get too more blessed than that.”

Question: How excited are you for the Olympics?
Boldon: “I try to not do that. I only look as far as the next meet. Last week when I was getting ready for the New York Adidas Grand Prix, I was focused on Tyson Gay, who has not run in 352 days, who was coming back from two surgeries in three years. I am only focused on the next event. So now I am focused on pouring everything I have into these kids and once that is done, I am looking forward to the Olympic Trials.
“I don’t look two and three meets ahead. I have enough time to be excited about the Olympics. I am certainly doing a good job about the countdown and know how long it is to the opening ceremonies and all that. But I don’t look forward in the same kind of way. I am anticipating it, but I am focusing on the next day’s event.”

Question: What are your expectations for Tyson Gay regarding his bid to make the Olympic team?
Boldon: “I feel like Tyson and I have kind of grown up together because my broadcast career started with his career at Arkansas. While he was doing great things at Arkansas, I was kind of figuring my way out in the broadcast world. Now he is kind of at the top of his field and I am on top of mine in terms of being a sprint analyst, and I can tell you that I did not expect Tyson Gay to look as good as he did in New York (last weekend).
Having said that, I went on the air and said I thought he would run 10 (seconds) flat (in the 100-meter dash) and he ran 10 flat and that was great. But in the back of my mind, I was like, ‘The surgeries, the layoff,’ I just wasn’t sure. It bothered me because I feel like Tyson makes the competition better. When we are talking about the trials and the Olympic Games, it is better to have the American record holder there. He is just such a great competitor and great guy.
“In terms of what I expect of him in the U.S. trials, I had Justin Gatlin winning until I saw Tyson in New York. I went back home and just submitted my picks to NBC.com and I went to Justin Gatlin and backspaced over that and put Gatlin second. I feel like Tyson has a point to prove even to the critics like me who don’t think he can come back after what he’s been through. That’s good. Every athlete has to find that kind of motivation and I feel like Tyson is going to win the Olympic trials.
“Now do I think he is going to win an Olympic gold medal? I am not so sure about that. But you never know. Bolt false started out of the 100-meter World Championship final. People get injured. All sorts of stuff happens. Will Tyson have a shot? I think if he stays healthy, yes he will. It will be good for him because even with his resume, he does not have an Olympic medal of any kind, not even a relay. I am eager to see him do well at the Olympics.”

Question: Do you think youngsters here realize how lucky they are to have Young, Joyner-Kersee, Dave Wottle, Francie Larrieu Smith and others here to instruct them?
Boldon: “They are young, but they will remember. I am here because of the people that are here. Kevin Young and Jackie Joyner-Kersee are my track idols. I chose the school (UCLA) I was going to attend because they were there.
“For kids, it can happen later. I have had people later send me a message on Twitter a year later, a month later saying, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t realize I met Ato Boldon.’ For kids, they don’t have to get it immediately as long as some point you got an opportunity to get some insight from somebody who has been there and done that.”

Question: Since you are a basketball fan, what did you think of Kentucky winning the national championship?
Boldon: “I am a huge basketball fan, and Kentucky was great. I am not as big a college fan in all honesty as I am NBA, but I was just happy to see them there. It’s a good tie-in to the whole Tyson Gay thing. If you are having the Olympic final, you want the American record holder in it. It makes it a better competition.
“I always feel like when programs like Kentucky, UCLA, North Carolina, Duke are having good seasons, it makes for a better college basketball season. Of course, UCLA is not doing so well, but it is a better college basketball season when Kentucky is having a good year and they had a great year which I am sure people in Kentucky liked a lot.”

Copyright © 2012, AM News

Track & Field: Gold medalist Dave Wottle looks back in his memorable 800-meter win at 1972 Munich Olympics

By LARRY VAUGHT larry@amnews.com

11:32 a.m. EDT, June 15, 2012

Dave Wottle working with middle distance runners

It has been almost 40 years since Dave Wottle pulled off a remarkable finish to come from last and win the 800-meter gold medal at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, that were disrupted by the terrorist attack on Israel’s male athletes.
Wottle was last early in the race before somehow overcoming a huge deficit to win at the wire in a race few who saw it will ever forget.
“I do know that it has been 40 years. It seems like a long time, but it doesn’t seem like a long time. I see the Olympic race through the camera eyes more than my eyes any more because it has been so long that I really forget what I was seeing and feeling during the race. I still get the opportunity to talk about the Olympics, so it doesn’t seem like it was that long in that sense,” said Wottle, who is working at the Maximum Velocity Track & Field Academy at Centre College this week.
Wottle, 61, says he had no idea he would win the race “until the finish line because it was not pre-planned to get 10 meters behind so early in the race.
However, he says the combination of him having tendinitis before the Olympics that limited his training and the fast early pace of the race put him “in a hole right out of the start” that he didn’t know he could overcome.
“Bottom line, it worked out well because they slowed down at the end and I simply maintained the same pace. They were coming back to me rather than me kicking and it went right down to the wire. That was closest finish in Olympic 800 history,” Wottle said.
“I tied the world record in the Olympic Trials (1:44.3) going in, but I was inexperienced. I was injured all of the 1971 season.¿I did not have much international experience. I was picked to be sixth in the race, which was a great place to be in.¿If you have the fastest time and know you can run a fast time but they don’t think you can be a medalist, it is a nice position psychologically to be in.”
Wottle was last after 500 meters before starting his move to the front and won the race by just 0.03 seconds.
His win was memorable for another reason — he forgot to take off his signature golf hat during the awards ceremony.
He says he didn’t wear the golf hat while running because he was superstitious.
“I came down with three injuries in the 1971 season and was out eight months. I started training in the hot, humid weather up in Ohio in 1971 and I started wearing this golf hat I got officiating track meets at Bowling Green where I went to school. I¿just started wearing it as a sun visor, sweat band, kept the hair out of my eyes,” Wottle said. “Ironically, I didn’t wear it during cross country or indoor season. I started wearing it in outdoor 1972 and after the Olympics no one knew who I was without the hat.”
So what happened at the medal ceremony when he wore the hat during the national anthem?
“I tell people it is like a wallet and you don’t even know you have it there.¿I didn’t even know I¿had it on. After the medal ceremony we went to the press conference and the first question they asked me — and this was aftermath of the Tommy Smith and John Carlos fist pumps during awards ceremony in the 1968 Olympics — was what were you protesting when you left your hat on during the national anthem and covered the USA patch,” Wottle said.
“That’s when it first hit me I¿had left it on. I was an Air Force ROTC student and I thought the president was going to put me in prison or something.¿I was pretty embarrassed by the whole thing.”
Later, the hat may have saved his life. He was scheduled to compete in the 1,500-meter run, but the Olympics were delayed after the hostages were taken. Wottle went for a run outside the Olympic Village and came back through an unconventional entrance. He kept running when a German solider told him to stop and when told again, he looked back to see the soldiers pointing machine guns at him before one said, “That’s Wottle.” He said they recognized him because of his hat and that’s why they didn’t shoot.
He turned pro after the Olympics because he knew he likely would not keep running until the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.
“My pro track career was short lived. I ran in 1974-75 and left track in January of 1976,” Wottle, who recently retired as Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Rhodes College in Memphis, said. “Back then you had to make a choice, so as soon as I made my decision to turn pro it meant I could never compete in the Olympics again. In the late 1970’s is when they allowed athletes to put money in escrow and keep their amateur status.¿I was kind of in that transitional period where you had to decide one or the other and I went pro.
“I was coaching at a local school in Ohio (Walsh College) while training for pro track. When I decided to leave they created a position in admissions and coaching. I eventually went to another school (Bethany College in West Virginia) and then went to Rhodes for 29 years.”
Even though he’s running with participants at camp this week, Wottle no longer is a runner.
“I¿run up and down a basketball court and I like playing basketball. That’s the way I get my exercise. I have not run for years,” Wottle said. “Training for me was a necessary evil.¿I didn’t like the training but I loved the competition. I¿knew I¿had to train hard to compete well. Once I¿had the opportunity to move away from the training,¿I did.
“I have lower back and knee problems now, but I love playing basketball with a group at my church.  I didn’t have any desire to run age group track meets as there would be some expectation by others that I should race fast and win. That’s why I like basketball so much as I don’t have to prove anything.”
It wasn’t that way when he once tried playing football in middle school. His grandfather played football with legendary Jim Thorpe with the Canton (Ohio) Bulldogs, a semipro team.
“I used to run by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton and my grandfather had his name listed there for playing with Jim Thorpe,” Wottle said. “My grandfather would talk about having (Thorpe) over to dinner, so they were teammates.
“My grandfather loved football and thought track was a sissy sport where you wore these short pants and ran around in circles. He just couldn’t relate to it but probably no one jumped out of his chair higher than my grandfather when he was watching the Olympic race. I remember flying back into Canton after the Olympics and my grandfather was the first one to welcome me back. He was very proud, but never quite understood track. Football was his sport.
“I played football in the eighth grade and it didn’t last very long.¿I went into that line a couple of times and got crushed and I decided to go baseball, basketball, track and then it became just track.”
Wottle has spend the last two days explaining that love of track to youngsters who came to Centre to draw on his expertise.
“I talk to them about training regimens and the importance of proper warm up and warm down. They have had questions about race situations and tactics. We cover the full gamut of things,” Wottle said.
Including his dramatic Olympic win.
“I look back at that Olympic race as being beyond me.¿I still have a hard time believing I ran that fast in that environment. It was a special time in my life and getting a chance to talk about it and relive it is still very special for me. You never tire of that,” Wottle said.
Wottle on favorites, terrorist attack

Former Olympic gold medalist Dave Wottle shared his thoughts on a variety of insights into his personality during a break at the Maximum Velocity Track & Field Academy at Centre College:
Favorite book — “It still is the Bible and always has been. I still have a long way to go to know it like I should. It’s an inspiration for the way to lead your life.”
Favorite drink — “Has to be sweet tea.¿I love sweet tea. I have a sweet tooth. One time when I was training I went to Italy and pretty much lived on Hershey chocolate bars and Coke. It was just like this sugar high all the time. I could run those calories off then. That was before the articles on diet and the importance of not having carbonated drinks and sweets and all that. I basically had a sweet tooth and the mileage I did training burned off all the calories and kept the body fat down to six percent.”
Favorite vacation spot — “Black Bear Falls in the Smoky Mountains. I love going there. I have a group of us at Rhodes (College) that have been going fly fishing out in Idaho and Montana and that’s been great, too. The only reason we go there instead of going over to the Smoky Mountains is because it is a lot cooler in the summer up in the Rockies and is less crowded. My wife and I and kids enjoy going to the undeveloped side of Gatlinburg at Black Bear Falls and it has really been fun for all of us.”
Munich Games terrorist attack — “I won the gold on Sept. 2nd and the hostage taking was on Sept. 4th. I was still there training and getting ready for the 1,500 meters. My roommate was Frank Shorter and his wife, Eloise, was sleeping on our balcony. She heard the first shots that killed the Israelis, but didn’t realize at the time what the noises were. It was like a ‘pop-pop-pop’ of a car backing up. I went out the next morning for a run in the back end of the Olympic Village and reporters got a hold of me and asked what had happened. I hadn’t noticed anything and this is when I started getting sketchy information that an Israeli athlete had been killed or possibly that 12 had been killed.
“After the games resumed, I still had the 1,500 meters left and I had to block the tragedy out of my mind. At the Olympics, an athlete cannot be thinking about two things. There has to be a focus on one’s performance. It doesn’t mean I was insensitive. But once it was announced the Games would resume, I decided that I would focus on my event and reflect on the tragedy later.”

Copyright © 2012, AM News

Track & Field: Olympic high jumper Dusty Jonas said it will be tough to miss out on the London games after suffer Achilles injury

By HAL MORRIS hmorris@amnews.com

11:24 a.m. EDT, June 15, 2012

Dusty Jonas works with high jumper

It’s going to be hard for Dusty Jonas to watch this year’s Olympics, if he even watches at all.
Four years ago, Jonas earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic team and participated in the Beijing games in the high jump. He had aspirations for another Olympic run for London, and possibly a medal, this year as well, but he suffered a torn Achilles tendon in his right foot in a meet in¿February ending his season.
“It’s been really tough. I’m still young enough that I can make a run at Rio (in 2016), but it’s really tough. If anything has been a battle, it’s been a mental battle with that,”¿Jonas said Thursday during the Maximum Velocity Track and Field Academy at Centre College.
Since Jonas has been rehabbing his injury, he was able to come to Centre and serve as an instructor at the camp, which ends Sunday.
Of course, he would rather be getting ready for the Olympic Trials  beginning June 21 in Eugene, Ore. He started off the year by taking second at the U.S. Open Indoor Championnships at 7 feet, 4 inches, then suffered his injury in his second meet of the season in Lincoln, Neb.
“Training had been going better than it had ever gone, by leaps and bounds,” said Jonas, who said his Achilles has been bothering him but that just come with athletics. “If you’re in track and field or in any sport, and you’re competing at a high level and something doesn’t hurt, you’re not doing something right.”
Jonas, 26, said he is just now getting to where he can jog “pretty well” and can work on getting his Achilles stronger.
“It’s not something you want to rush because you want the tendon to heal before the muscles get too strong and start pulling,” he said. “It’s doing well. I should be able to be back by next year and do well. Achilles is a slow recovery.”
Since he has been off, Jonas has turned his attention to coaching. He just finished this third season as a volunteer assistant at Nebraska, where he was a seven-time All-American and set a Big 12 conference record with his high jump of 7-8 3/4 in 2008.
“I saw kids I was coaching have some success, so it makes you feel really good when you’re having an affect on people and you’re doing well,” he said. “I think that kind of kept my mind off everything.”
Once his days of competing are over, Jonas said he wants to get into coaching.
 “I’ve really started enjoying it. It’s, to me, been something that is really rewarding. I love the sport so much, I don’t know if I could leave it,” he said. “I feel if I could help a  few kids out, help them grow as athletes and people, I think that’s something that will really be worth it in the long run.
“If the kids that are really into it, if two or three take away something that will stick in their minds, I’ll feel I’ve done a pretty good job.”
But Jonas, who won a bronze medal at the 2010 World Indoor Championships, is far from finished and expects to be back next season as strong as ever. He said he can start jumping in October or November and he wants to be ready for the 2013 indoor season.
“I’ve got a few good years left,” he said. “I’ve heard horror stories and I’ve heard really awesome success stories (about recovery). The way everything is recovering right now, I think everything’s going to be fine, especially since it’s not on my jump foot.”
One of most asked questions Jonas gets when he works camps like the Maximum Velocity camp is about his experience in Beijing in the 2008 Olympics where finished 16th in the qualifying rounds at 7-2 1/2.
“As young as I was, I had just turned 22 when I made that team, and it was an experience that I’ll never forget. Three weeks in China, and I traveled a little bit before that to do some meets in Europe. It was a growing experience for sure, especially when it was one of my first international trips to a far away country.
“It was different. It was real special. I wish I could have done better, but that’s when this Achilles actually started bothering me.”

Track & Field: Local athletes excited to be working with Olympians at Maximum Velocity camp

Ato Boldon works with sprinters at the Maximum Velocity Track and Field Academy

By HAL MORRIS hmorris@amnews.com

11:12 a.m. EDT, June 15, 2012

Darion Lewis is a long and triple jumper for the Mercer County track and field team, but the senior was working with Olympic silver and bronze medalist sprinter Ato Boldon early Thursday early at the Maximum Velocity Track and Field Academy at Centre College because he knows any tips he can get to improve his speed will help him with his jumps.
“I’ve had pretty good coaches in the past, and they pretty much taught me all of this, but (Boldon) is putting in a lot of new, small things, just making it a little bit better,”¿said Lewis, who was anxious to get to the jump pits Thursday afternoon and see if what he had learned carried over to his jumps.
“I figured I’d learn a lot and have a lot to take back with me. I heard there was going to be a lot of Olympians here, and I just wanted to start learning a lot of new stuff. I just want to get better for this next track season.”
Lewis was one of just a few local athletes on hand for this week’s camp, which drew participants from as far as Texas. But improvement was the main reason most of the athletes came to Centre this week.
“Just learning how to pace yourself and push yourself and when to go harder and when to push yourself,”¿Danville sophomore distance runner Meagan Smith said.
Smith was working  with Olympians Francie Larrieu-Smith and Dave Wottle, and said being around them will be a terrific experience.
“Just getting to work with the Olympians. It’s just amazing to meet them and learn about their experiences and how they became great runners,”¿Smith said.
Boyle County senior pole vault Rachel Wesley was working with Olympian and former American record holder Jeff Hartwig.
“I’m really excited to be here because he’s an amazing vaulter,” she said. “I just want to keep getting better and better.”
Wesley said had already changed her technique and that has made vaulting easier.
“I need to keep my arms out and keep them up and straight,” she said. “Because I usually hug (the pole).”
Claire Feldhaus of Russell Springs said she learned about the camp from her friend’s parents, and thought it was the perfect thing to help her improve her skills in the 400-meter run. She was also anxious to meet Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
“I’ve learned to better my technique. They changed it, not completely, but they made it better,” she said.
North Oldham sophomore Elizabeth Olive said there was a lot she had learned during her hurdle drills. Olive had never learned about the dorsey flex, which means pointing your toes towards the sky when going over a hurdles. And that was just the beginning for her.
“I¿learned new techniques and how to properly use your legs and feet, the proper positions,”¿she said. “I just wanted to learn new things and get better times.”
Some athletes are making return trips to the camp.
St. Henry’s Craig Aldridge worked with Jamie Nieto on the high jump last year, and was looking forward to working with 2008 Olympian Dusty Joans this week.
“I came down last year and thought it was really fun and very helpful and informative.  I knew a different high jumper was coming, and I wanted a different perspective on things,”¿said Aldridge, who had already altered his jumping style a little. “It’s definitely changed my steps a ton because I really didn’t have any.”

Track & Field: Olympian Kevin Young looks back on 400-meter hurdles record that still stands after 20 years

From Left to Right: Kevin Young, Jeff Hartwig, Erin Gilreath, and Dave Wottle

By LARRY VAUGHT larry@amnews.com

10:02 a.m. EDT, June 14, 2012
No one could have imagined 20 years ago when Kevin Young won the 400-meter hurdles at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona that his winning time of 46.78 seconds would remain the world record 20 years later, but that’s exactly what has happened.
Young, who won the 1993 World Championship in 47.18 seconds, had an unusual hurdling technique of switching between 12 and 13 strides between hurdles — a departure from the 13-stride technique used by Edwin Moses that remains the standard for hurdlers.
His record is even more unbelievable considering he failed to clear the last hurdle cleanly but he was so far ahead of the field that he slowed down to raise his arm in celebration as he crossed the finish line.
This week Young, 45, is in Danville working as a clinician at the Maximum Velocity Track & Field Academy at Centre College. Young, who was inducted into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame in 2006 and once won 25 straight races, shared these insights Wednesday night as campers were arriving for the camp that features even former Olympians on the staff:

Question: How much do you still think back to that 1992 Olympic race and get asked about it?
Young: “With this being the 20-year anniversary of the race, I¿have been thinking about it a lot. I am planning on trying to take a trip to London (site of the 2012 Olympics) this summer to do something. Even living in Georgia now, I am around a lot of youngsters now who were not even born when I¿ran that particular race or know about it. Especially in Georgia because that is (Olympic hurdler) Edwin Moses country. I¿am constantly reminded that I hold the world record and having been holding it for almost 20 years. The cool thing with YouTube and everything now is that you can go back and check the race out.
“I am also visiting a lot of schools in the area where I¿live and a lot of those youngsters go back and see the race and get excited. I still constantly get a kick out of it, especially still being the world record holder.”

Question: What made that such a magical race for you and did you have any idea then just how spectacular that time was?
Young: “First of all, I¿think the expectations for a lot of people other than myself were that the 47-second barrier would never be broken. I was very confident I¿had the ability to do just that. Even setting my goal leading up to the games, I¿kind of predicted I¿would be able to run as fast as I did and then to exceed what my own expectations were was real cool. I shocked a lot of folks and all the naysayers that were out there had a chance to see the race and it just kind of blew them away. I still think even to this day a lot of folks still haven’t truly acknowledged that I¿have been the world record holder for almost 20 years?

Question: Do you ever wonder how much faster you might have gone that day if you had not nicked the last hurdle or raised your arm at the end?
Young: “I am sure it could have been faster, but the fact I was in the Olympic Games four years prior to that and took fourth place, my priority there was to get a medal. Even the World Championships the previous year in Tokyo, I¿took fourth place. My thing always was to get that fourth-place monkey off my back. When I was coming down the stretch, the only thing I¿knew was that I was going to win that medal. Even prior to that walking onto the field and getting to the lanes, I had flashbacks to 1988 and was shaking this was my year to medal.”

Question: Is it true that you put pieces of paper with 46.89 in each running spike during the 1992 season because you expected to break the 47-second barrier?
Young: “I had 47.89 seconds written on a couple of pieces of paper and rolled it up in each shoe and had stuffed it in my running spikes. I¿actually had that after the 1988 Olympics. I had walked around with that number for a few years and would take it out at practice time and look at it. I became real familiar in my head with the number 46.89 seconds. Even in the Olympic Village, I was caught writing on the wall in real small numbers by one of teammates and he busted in on me and I freaked out. I told him I was writing 46.89 on the wall and he told me I¿had to write it bigger than that to achieve my goal. After that I¿took the pencil and was writing 46.89 all over the walls because we were in apartments in Barcelona and they were going to go through there after we left and paint everything. Sure enough I went out there and ran 46.78 seconds.”

Question: Considering all the advances in technology and training, how do you explain that you have held this record for 20 years?
Young: “The talent level in the 400 hurdles has been there. It’s just a matter of the small things as a hurdler that they have to perfect. The talent level is there. They are running low 47’s. It’s just a tick faster to my time. It all has to be date, time and awareness. An event like the Olympics puts everything together and brings out the extra element that pushes athletes to a whole different level. Maybe that is it. Hopefully they won’t figure it out.
“I think my approach to the race itself made my performance easier. When I ran my race,¿I figured I would be consistent and constant. A lot of hurdlers now are playing hit and miss with their approach to the hurdles. I¿am going to say as long as they keep running that way, they will not break my world record.”

Question: What impact did Edwin Moses’ career have on you?
Young: “Not as much as (1988 Olympic gold medalist) Andre Phillips. He was a fellow (UCLA) Bruin and an individual who was constantly on the track with me and training. He gave me advice, so I could go to different levels of competition. Over the years I was able to consistently lean on him. He provided great information to me and that is what pushed my career.
“But just the fact that Edwin ran at such a high level, he set the bar. If not for him setting the bar, I would not have had a particular goal to go after, so he gets some credit there. But ultimately I would say Andre Phillips gets the majority of the credit for helping me.”

Question: What is going on with Kevin Young these days?
Young: “I have been married almost two years. Moved from New York back to Georgia. I am training with younger athletes. I am the advisory chair for USA Track and Field Georgia, our local association.¿I connect with our athletes, elite athletes, journey athletes trying to go to a new level. I help provide information and training and sponsoring advice for them to make transition and pursue a professional career in track and field.”

Question: What did it mean to you to be the first ever ESPY award winner in track?
Young: “ The biggest thing about the ESPY when I¿got that award was Jimmy Valvano. We were in New York doing the show and he was really the topic of the ESPYs. Me and other athletes knew his history and he was battling cancer but he was so upbeat and chipper. It was incredible.
“The ESPYs were not the big rock star event on ESPN that they are now. I do like to say I have the very first track and field ESPY. Think about it. You have this red carpet event now, but the first one was not like that. It is such a media event now with more coverage and more sports involved. ESPN and ABC have taken that awards show and mold it to what they want. I am hoping to show back up.¿I have not been to the ESPY awards since I¿won. Maybe next year I¿will be invited back. It will be an anniversary year.”

Question: Any chance the Olympians here at Centre College providing the instruction are going to enjoy this camp more than the kids attending?
Young: “My roommate here at the camp is (1972 Olympic gold medalist) Dave Wottle. He is one of the my childhood heroes. I just knew of him. When I found out we were going to be rooming together I was like, ‘Wow. I don’t believe this.’ I have a cap (Wottle was famous for running in a golf hat) that I¿am going to get him to sign and I¿am going to frame it. I had my camera phone out taking video of all these former Olympians talking and I have these nice 30-second segments of him talking about Munich Olympics and whole terrorist thing. I am having a good time already.”

Camp Check In Is Today!

The 2012 MAXIMUM VELOCITY TRACK AND FIELD ACADEMY check in is today. 

Overnight campers will check in from 4:00-5:00pm in the Hazelrigg Gymnasium located in Sutcliffe Hall. Commuter campers and coaches will check in from 6:00-6:30pm also in the Hazelrigg Gymnasium.

At 7:00pm campers will be welcomed in Young Hall Auditorium, followed by games and activities with camp counselors.