The 112th running of the Penn Relays was held at Franklin Field the last weekend in April, and as usual, the internationally acclaimed event was full of excitement.
And if you missed it, NBC will be rebroadcasting their coverage of the event on Sunday, May 21 at noon.
Thursday
The latest edition of track and field's marquee event got under way in earnest on the morning of Thursday, April 27 at Franklin Field, and it did not take long to start awarding medals.
Miami's Dominique Darden took top honors in the college women's 400-meter hurdles. Darden has been a standout all four years she has run for the Hurricanes, collecting 10 All-American honors, the most by any Miami woman.
In a thrilling finish, Villanova's women won the college distance medley relay. Penn finished fifth in the race, to the delight of coach Gwen Harris and the Quakers runners.
In the high school girls 4x100m, Holmwood Technical of Jamaica finished its heat with a time of 45:14, which would have been good enough to qualify for the college championship. Five of the eight qualifiers in the 4x100m are from Jamaica, while the best U.S. time came from Bethel of Virginia.
-- Jeff Shafer
Friday
One day after Serbia-Montenegro native Marina Muncan passed Stanford junior Arianna Lambie on the back stretch to give Villanova a win in the distance medley relay, the Cardinal anchor held off Muncan in the final leg of the 4x1500m Championship of America.
The win was Stanford's third straight in that event at the relays, as the team of Amanda Trotter, Lauren Centrowitz, Katy Trotter and Lambie finished in 17:18.63.
As Lambie cruised to the finish line, the public address announcer revealed that Stanford's time was good for an American record.
"I heard it at the very end," Lambie said of the announcement of her record-setting time. "But I wasn't thinking about that ... I was thinking about not losing the win."
For the home team, it was a day of mixed but mostly positive results. The highlight of the day was the Penn men's track team's thrilling victory over Princeton in the 4x400m Heptagonal race.
Quakers anchor Sam Shepherd held a sizeable lead heading into the final leg, but Princeton anchor Richard Stewart gave a furious chase and narrowed the gap to a few steps in the home stretch. But Shepherd was able to hold on, and Penn edged out its rival in so many sports by 0.19 seconds -- 3:12.55 to 3:12.74.
For Penn coach Charlie Powell, the result was what he expected.
"We knew we were one of the top three teams in it," he said. "Richard Stewart ... is very good. Sam, even though he's a freshman, he's an unbelievable athlete."
And Powell said the Penn-Princeton rivalry is as strong on the track as it is next door at the Palestra.
"Is there a rivalry between the Yankees and Boston Red Sox?" he quipped.
The busiest man on the Penn team today was probably sophomore David Whitehurst, who competed in three events: the shuttle hurdles, the 110m hurdles and the first 200m leg of the sprint medley.
In the shuttle hurdles, Penn finished fourth in its heat and last overall with a time of one minute, 3.40 seconds. The Quakers were one of three teams that suffered falls in the heat, along with Penn State and Clemson.
In the 110m hurdles, Whitehurst finished fourth in his heat in 14.26 seconds. That was his personal best for the year by three-tenths of a second, and it was the 13th best overall time.
"I'm not satisfied -- I'm okay with it," he said.
Then came the 200m sprint in the last collegiate event of the day, and Whitehurst admitted he was not so familiar with that kind of running.
"I know hurdles. I don't know sprints," he said.
The high school result of the day was from the Holmwood Tech girls 4x400m team. The Jamaican powerhouse won the Championship of America in that event, giving it a clean sweep of the girls' 4x100m, 4x400m and 4x800m titles.
-- Sebastien Angel and Jonathan Tannenwald
Saturday
On the final day, a crowd of 49,771 was on hand to watch the stars of track and field compete in the USA vs. the World races. The United States won every race except the inaugural distance medley relay, won by Kenya in a thrilling comeback finish.
Jamaican star Asafa Powell, the current world record-holder in the 100m sprint, won that event easily, to the delight of the pro-Jamaica crowd.
Penn's men and women competed in the 4x800m Championship of America races, with the women finishing an impressive fifth and the men coming in 12th after a collision at the first handoff.
In other college action, Louisiana State came away with an impressive haul of plaques. The Tigers women won the 4x200m relay, and the men won the 4x100, 4x200 and 4x400m relays. Miami won the women's 4x400m, Arkansas won the men's 4xMile and Texas won the women's 4x800.
There were plenty of high school races as well, and all the Championships of America from Saturday are headed down to Jamaica.
Josef Robertson of Wolmers Boys won the 400m hurdles, Camperdown won the 4x100 and 4x400m relays, and perennial power Holmwood Tech won the 4x800m relay.
The Saturday crowd took the three-day attendance total at Franklin Field to 114,194, a new Penn Relays record.
-- J.T.
