OTC Elite ready to roll at Olympic Trials
Chanelle Price (left) and Sabrina Southerland
(right) race at the 2021 Portland Track Festival. Photo by Jake Willard
By Curtis Anderson | June 23, 2021
EUGENE, Ore. - It's go-time for Oregon Track Club Elite.
After sitting out the first four days of the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials, six OTC Elite athletes will make their debut at the new Hayward Field on Thursday.
Ben Blankenship and Vince Ciattei are entered in the men's 1,500 meters; Hanna Green, Chanelle Price and Sabrina Southerland will compete in the women's 800m; and Hassan Mead toes the line in the men's 5,000m.
Green, Price, Southerland, and Ciattei have all achieved the Olympic standard in their respective races, while Blankenship and Mead have garnered enough points in the World Ranking system to qualify for Olympic selection.
Here's a quick look at each event:
Men's 1,500m (1st round, 6:04 p.m.) - This will be the first race of the season for Blankenship, an eighth-place finisher in this event at the 2016 Rio Olympics. He placed fifth in the 1,500m at the 2018 World Indoor Championships in Birmingham, England and ran the anchor leg on Team USA's world record-setting distance medley relay at the 2015 IAAF World Relays in Nassau, Bahamas. He set his PR of 3:34.26 in 2016. Ciattei, the Virginia Tech alum, bettered the Olympic standard (3:35.00) with a personal best of 3:34.57 at the Portland Track Festival on May 29 at Lewis and Clark College.
Women's 800m (1st round, 7 p.m.) - Green had her breakthrough season in 2019 when she qualified for the IAAF World Championships in Doha with a runner-up performance and PR of 1:58.19 at the USA Outdoor Championships. She competed three times overseas earlier this summer and has a season best of 1:59.88. Southerland, the former Oregon standout, broke 2 minutes in the 800m for the first time with a PR of 1:58.82 at the Portland Track Festival on May 29. It was a personal best by nearly 2 seconds and easily under the Olympic standard of 1:59.50. Price also hit the Olympic standard in that race at 1:59.12, her fastest time at that distance since setting her PR of 1:59.10 six years ago. Price won the gold medal in the 800m at the 2014 World Indoor Championships in Sopot. As a high school senior in 2008, she competed in both the Prefontaine Classic and U.S. Olympic Trials.
Men's 5,000m (1st round, 8:04 p.m.) - While he has competed in other events this year, this will be Mead's first 5,000m of the season. He was a finalist at both the 2019 World Championships in Doha and 2017 World Championships in London. Mead finished 11th at the 2016 Rio Olympics with a time of 13:09.81. The former University of Minnesota standout set his PR of 13:02.80 in 2014.