CeCe Telfer Wins NCAA Division II 400m Hurdles Track Championship!

While the attention of the Texas Black trans community was focused on the DFW area, what we weren't aware of was that some Black trans excellence was happening here in the Lone Stat State. 

The NCAA Division II Women's Track & Field (Athletics to the rest of the world) Championships were held in Kingsville, TX on the campus of Texas A&M-Kingsville just outside of Corpus Christi during that May 23-25 weekend.

In the 400 m hurdles race final starting in Lane 4 was Franklin Pierce University senior CeCe Telfer.  She'd already finished fifth in the 100 m hurdles final earlier in the day at 13;56 seconds, a half second behind NCAA Div II national champion Courtney Nelson of Pittsburg State..

Telfer captured the 400 m NCAA Div II title in the 400 m hurdles in a personal best time of 57.53 seconds

"It was tough conditions out here with the wind and the heat over the last three days but, as she has over the last six months, CeCe proved herself to be tough enough to handle it," said FPU head coach Zach Emerson of the performance. "Today was a microcosm of her entire season; she was not going to let anything slow her down. I've never met anybody as strong as her mentally in my entire life."

As you probably guessed, the TERFs and other haters are already coming out to attack her.   Telfer competed on the FPU men's squad for three years before stepping away from track for a year to transition.   NCAA rules state that you must be on hormones and testosterone suppression meds for one year before you are allowed to compete in your presentation gender. 

Telfer's love of the sport pulled her back to the track, and she was enthusiastically supported by the Franklin Pierce University administration, the AD, and her teammates.
 

But she still faced transphobic hatred from other competitors during her senior season. 

Nevertheless she persisted, and is not walking way with the NCAA Div II title as 400m hurdles champion.

2016 Olympics Watch-Semenya Wins Gold!

Well haters, Caster Semenya handled her Olympic business and won the 800m gold that eluded her in London.  

Semenya won her race in a personal best time of 1:55:28, which is not only the best time run in the world in the 800m this year, it was also a South African national record.

What was even more delicious for me was that the silver and bronze medalists who finished behind the Olympic champion were also continental Africans.  Burundi's Francine Niyonsaba captured the silver and Kenya's Margaret Wambui took the bronze/

.And unfortunately, the same innuendo that has dogged Semenya since 2009 has popped up in Rio to shadow the silver and bronze medalists.

Niyonsaba took the lead in the race with 300m to go but Semenya unleashed her finishing kick with 150m left in the race to win

The haters can keep on pouting in the corner and trying to throw shade at the now 25 year old Semenya.  The 800m gold medal is still going back to South Africa with Caster,  

Congratulations, and see you in 2020 sis as you defend your title in Tokyo.

2016 Olympics Watch- Caster Semenya To 800m Final

I was happy to see Caster Semenya of South Africa after all the drama she has been through since bursting into the world's consciousness at age 18 during the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Berlin by running and winning the 800m in the fifth fastest time ever run by a woman.

She went through Hades after that because it is assumed she has a condition called hyperandrogenism, that naturally produces more testosterone in her body than the average female athlete, and some peeps are complaining that isn't fair to other female competitors.

Nobody complains about Michael Phelps feet acting like dolphin flippers when he's swimming. Nobody complains about Usain Bolt's 6'5" frame and long stride that allows him to effortlessly run away from his competition in the second half of 100m and 200m races.

What they do is just deal with the fact they are born with some competitive advantages, train harder and do their best to beat him.  Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

But the fact Semenya is a continental African running in an athletics race that has been one that white female athletes have until recently dominated is probably one of the reasons I believe why she's gotten so much unwarranted crap and scrutiny.

It's one of the many reasons why I'm rooting for Semenya to win the gold medal she ironically lost out on in London to an allegedly steroid fueled Russian competitor in Mariya Savinova four years ago.

She won her 800m semifinal heat in 1:58.15 to get her to the finals with the best time.

Semenya is considered the favorite to be standing atop the medal podium hearing the South African national anthem after taking a silver medal in London.

And I'm going to have fun hopefully watching her do so.  

Olympic Gender Drama-Flo Jo

Since the 1960 Rome Olympics, with the exception of the period from 1976-1984 when the steroid fed East German women were tearing up the tracks, the USA women have had a multiple medal sprinting star in athletics.  

It was Wilma Rudolph in Rome.  Wyomia Tyus did so during two Olympiads at Tokyo in 1964 and the 1968 Mexico City Games.  In Los Angeles in 1984 it was two American women who shared that golden Olympic spotlight in Valerie Brisco-Hooks and Evelyn Ashford.

In the 1988 Seoul Games, no star shone brighter or with more style than Florence Griffith-Joyner's.

FloJo's story was beginning to be told as the hometown girl competing in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics with the glamorous looks, long nails with speed to burn.  She took home a silver medal in the 200m in 22.02 behind Valerie Brisco-Hooks gold medal winning Olympic record time of 21.81 seconds.

Now it was four years later and Griffith-Joyner after a trying post LA Games period served notice at the US Olympic Trials in Indianapolis in July 1988 the Seoul Olympics was going to be her party. 

In her 100m opening heat in the 1988 Olympic trials she ran a wind aided 10.60, which was below Evelyn Ashford's then four year old world record of 10.76 seconds.  Undaunted, Griffith-Joyner obliterated the world record in her quarterfinal heat by clocking an astounding 10.49 time that STILL hasn't been matched.  The wind gauge was showing 0.0 meters per second (no wind) so it stood.

She then ran 10.70 in the 100m semifinal (wind a legal 1.6 mps) and 10.61 in a legal 1.2 meters per second wind in the final to claim her ticket to Seoul. 

If anyone had doubts that those Flo-Jo times were flukes, in her specialty, the 200m, she just missed by .06 of a second matching East German Marita Koch's world record with a 21.77 quarterfinal time and clocked a 21.85 in the final.  

After running the four fastest 100m times for any woman in history in Indy, setting a world record in the 100m, barely missing the 200m world record and setting an American record in the 200m Trials quarterfinal, Flo-Jo was a heavy pre-Olympics favorite to dominate the track in Seoul

She didn't disappoint. On her way to the 100m gold medal she broke the Olympic record three times with 10.88, 10.62 and 10.54 times.  Her 10.54 time to capture the gold over defending 1984 Olympic champion Evelyn Ashford was unfortunately wind aided, so 10.62 is the current Olympic record.  

It also gave Griffith-Joyner at the time the seven fastest 100m times in history.

But Flo-Jo wasn't finished.  In the 200m, she warmed up with a quarterfinal time of 21.76 to erase Valerie Brisco-Hooks' Olympic record she set in 1984.   Flo-Jo then obliterated Marita Koch's 21.71 world record with a semifinal time of 21:56, then lowered it to 21:34 in the 200m final to capture her second gold medal of the Seoul Games. 

She added another gold in the 4x100m relay  but her attempt to become the first woman ever to win four gold medals in a single Olympic track meet was dashed when she couldn't catch Olga Bryzgina of the Soviet Union down the stretch. 

The Soviet 4x400m relay quartet ran a world record setting time of 3:15.17 just to get the gold with Griffith-Joyner and her American teammates having to settle for silver.   That 4x400m relay was not only the first time Flo-Jo had run an internationally rated 400 meter relay, the 3:15.51 time they ran is still the second fastest ever run. 

But because Ben Johnson failed a post race drug test and had to give up his 100m gold medal and the 9.79 world record he ran to beat Carl Lewis to get it, it cast a pall over the Games and the times of Flo-Jo came under suspicion. 

1984 LA Games 800m gold medalist Joaquim Cruz of Brazil started throwing shade at Flo-Jo by claiming she was on steroids or other performance enhancing drugs and there was no way she could have run those times.

She denied it, the tests came up clean, and Griffith-Joyner later won that year's Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete male or female in the US.  She moved on after the 1988 Games to retirement, have her daughter Mary Ruth Joyner in 1990 and her post Olympic life.

But those questions about alleged drug use kept coming up, and dogged her to her untimely death at age 38. While sleeping in her Mission Viejo, CA home she died of suffocation during a severe epileptic seizure on September 21, 1998.  An autopsy conducted by the Orange County Coroner's office noted she had not died from drugs or banned substances.  

After Griffith-Joyner's death in 1998, Prince Alexandre de Merode, the Chairman of the International Olympic Committee's medical commission, stated that Joyner was singled out for extra, rigorous drug testing during the 1988 Olympic Games because of rumors of steroid use.  She was rigorously tested according to him by Manfred Donike, the foremost expert at the time during the 1988 Games, who failed to find anything

"We performed all possible and imaginable analyses on her...We never found anything. There should not be the slightest suspicion [on Florence Griffith Joyner]  

So stop hating, and give Flo-Jo her due as the fastest woman ever.

2012 Olympic Watch-Semenya Gets 800m Silver

I was eagerly watching along with the rest of the world the women's Olympic 800m final race to see if now 21 year old Caster Semenya's drama would end with a golden result. 

Alas it didn't.

She was dead last for 600m of the race and waited a little too long to start her finishing kick and ended up with the silver medal behind Russia's Mariya Savinova in a time of 1:57:23.   Defending Olympic champ Pamela Jelimo of Kenya faded badly down the strtch and finished fourth.

The tactics she use in this race has led to speculation by BBC commentator Colin Jackson that she's holding back in order to not win races in dominating fashion, and avoid a repeat of the international drama that sidelined her for 10 months after the 2009 world championship victory.   .

Atlanta Olympian Michael Johnson disagreed with Jackson's theory on Semenya's motivation.


"Why would she prepare and come here and not want to win? She showed in 2009 she was a fighter. I am not buying that. I don't see that in Semenya," Johnson said.

I'm not buying that either.   But damn, Semenya is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't win big.  

What I was happy to hear is that Semenya's coach is now the great Olympian Maria Mutola of Mozambique, who faced her own gender drama back in the day as well.

And yes, there's Rio four years from now.     

2012 Olympics Watch-40.82!

For American track fans, winning the 4x100 and 4x400 relays in an Olympics or World Championships is like winning the gold medal in basketball.

It's expected due to the long and distinguished history in these events on both the men's and women's sides..   

The USA women prior to 2000 had won the 4x100 relay nine of the 16 times the event had been held with the last win being in the 1996 Atlanta Games.

During the Sydney Games a relay team featuring gold medal winner Marion Jones had to settle for bronze because of a sloppy second exchange between Torri Edwards and Nanceen Perry.

In Athens in 2004, they bungled the second exchange again and failed to finish because Lauryn Williams started too early and Jones passed her the baton beyond the legal zone. 

And in Beijing the buzzard's luck for the women's 4x100 relay team continued.  They didn't even make the final because they failed to finish in their qualifying heat.

Track fans in the States were getting restless with the miscues and the gold medal drought in one of the events we consider a signature one for our Olympic track teams of either gender. 

The drought ended in resounding fashion last night.   Not only did the USA quartet of Tianna Madison, Allyson Felix, Bianca Knight and Carmelita Jeter win gold, they beat their Jamaican rivals in a resounding world record setting time of 40.82 seconds.

They took out the 41.37 record set in 1985 by East Germany and also took out the East German 1988 Olympic record in the process.


Great job ladies.   Now how about an encore in Rio?

Good Luck Keelin!

The US Olympic Track and Field Trials (called Athletics to the rest of the world) will kick off today and run through July 1 in Eugene, OR to determine who gets those coveted all expense paid spots on the US Olympic team we're sending to London.

I've talked about transman Keelin Godsey, who has been pursuing his dream of competing in the Olympics since 2008.

Starting at 2:15 PM EDT 28 year old Godsey will take the first steps toward sporting history when he competes in the hammer throw prelims competition with 23 other athletes at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, OR.  If everything goes well for Godsey he'll be in the finals that start at 4:15 PM EDT.  

Keelin was a 16 time All-American athlete at Bates College and the Division III national champion in 2005 in the hammer throw before transitioning during his senior year.

Godsey has continued post college to excel in the event and has already passed the Olympic qualifying standard of 68 meters.   He long ago socially transitioned to male, but will compete in the women's hammer throw and is considered by IOC and IAAF rules as a female competitor.  He is forgoing taking testosterone until either after the trials or the London Olympics so that he could make his Olympic competition dream come true.    

If Keelin places in the top three finishers, he not only will make the team, he will become the first open trans athlete ever to quality for their national Olympic team and the US Olympic team.   Keelin already has the distinction of being the first open trans athlete to make a US Pan Am Games squad and competed in the 2011 Pan Am Games, finishing fifth in the hammer throw competition in Guadalajara. 

Keelin, good luck and hope you make your Olympic dream come true.

TransGriot Update:  Sadly, Keelin failed to qualify.   Finished fifth despite a personal best throw of 231 feet 3 inches. Missed a trip to London by 11 inches.

The Road To London Is Starting In Houston

As you Olympic junkies like me already know the London Games will be contested from July 27-August 12. 

The qualifying for the various international team sports and events has been going on, is happening or will be happening around the world over the next few months for the chance to become an Olympic champion.

The road for the 2012 US Olympic marathon contingent that will compete in London on August 5 and August 12 started in downtown Houston at 8:15 AM CST for the 113 men and women who hope to gain one of the six spots available.

We're running the Houston marathon this weekend, and as part of it we snagged the honor of hosting the 2012 US Olympic Team trials.  One of the cool things they are doing is the men's and women's marathons are being run at the same time.  

The marathon is one of the events that has been contested on the men's side in every modern Olympic games since the 1896 revival and is by tradition the last event that closes out Olympic competition. 

The women's marathon is contested at the midpoint of an Olympiad.  It has a shorter history because of the decades long contentious battle to get it and any race longer than 1500m for women on the Olympic program.

The last Americans to win an Olympic marathon were Frank Shorter at the 1972 Munich Games.and on the women's side Joan Benoit in the inaugural women's marathon contested at the Los Angeles Games in 1984. 

Since 1996 it's been predominately an East African party on the men's side with the Kenyans and Ethiopians dueling for supremacy with only the 1996 and 2004 golds eluding their grasp..  

The temp right now folks as I compose this is 52 degrees (11 degrees C) with bright sunshine and little to no wind which is why we run the Houston Marathon in January.

Hey, it isn't Hades hot here all the time.   But back to the post.  

They had an opening ceremony for it last night at Discovery Green complete with a fireworks display and appearances by Shorter and Benoit.  We'll also know which six people earned their ticket to London by running down the streets of Houston in a few hours.

TransGriot Update:  The 2012 US Olympic Marathon team is:on the men's side Meb Keflezighi, the winner and 2004 Olympic marathon silver medalist who ran a personal best 2:09:08 time. Pre-race favorite Ryan Hall was second in 2:09:30 and third was Abdi Abdirahman, who clocked a 2:09:47 and has run the 10,000 meters in the last three Olympics.

The US women going to London will be Shalane Flanagan, who in just her second marathon ran a personal best 2:25:38 to win and lowered by 3:05 her previous personal best time. Desi Davila was second in 2:25:55 and Kara Goucher third 2:26:06  

Another good sign for the women is that the top four finishers all ran under the 2004 Olympic Trials record of  2:28:25 set by Colleen de Reuck.