Reign In Spain?

IAAF World Juniors Live Webcast

USA Track & Field has released its rosters for the IAAF World Junior Championships — which welcomes qualified athletes from 186 nations — and two Ivy Leaguers are set to compete in Barcelona, Spain, next week.

Cornell rising sophomore Stephen Mozia will be in contention for a medal in the shot put. He put the world on notice at Nationals with a final-round toss of 20.20 meters (66-3 1/4), which was within inches of the meet record.

Despite dominating the competition with the junior 13.2-pound shot in Bloomington, Ind., Mozia told Paul Schwartz of the Bergen Record that he wasn’t that thrilled with his performance. “I really didn’t throw that well today because none of my throws were really good throws except for the last one that I fouled at about 22 meters (about 71 feet). I’m not used to throwing this shot (college shots are standard 16 pounds) but I’m going to work on it the next few weeks.”

That was a few weeks ago. We long to see what he work has produced.

Princeton rising sophomore Eddie Owens will take to the track in the steeplechase. He took second at Nationals in 9:13.08, which was outside the qualifying standards, but he’d run sub-nine already in his rookie season. Owens has represented Team USA twice in his young career and told John Torenli of the Brooklyn Eagle, “It’s quite an honor and I am extremely proud to represent the United States in the competition.”

This entry was posted on Friday, July 6th, 2012 at 9:24 am. It is filed under Athletes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.