Two Ohioans represented the USA at the IAAF World Youth Championships in Bressanone, Italy. The meet started on Wednesday July 8th and runs through Sunday.
The two Ohioans that are part of Team USA are Quincy Downing in the 800m, who will be a junior next year at Glenville, and Zach Wills in the 3000m, also a junior-to-be from Mason.
800m Prelims
Downing (Pictured at left, photo by Victor Sailor of Photorun.net) finished sixth in his heat with a time of 1:58.58. Downing would have had to run 1:55.51 to qualify for the semi-finals.
3000m Prelims
Wills (Pictured at right, photo courtesy of www.NationalScholastic.com) qualified for the finals of the 3000m by finishing fifth in his heat and tenth overall with a time of 8:25.93. Wills reported that there was a lot of pushing, shoving and that he even had to hurdle a competitor to keep up with the competition in his heat.
3000m Finals
Wills finished in ninth position by running 8:18.24, one position and just six tenths of a second ahead of fellow American, Erik Olson. The winnner, a Kenyan, Isiah Kiplangat Koech who ran the 3000m in a time of 7:51.51, while eighth place went to Japan's Kazuto Nishiike who finished in 8:16.73.