Gator track & field athletes wrapped up competition at
the 2013 USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships Sunday, while three-time
Olympian Novlene Williams-Mills was making history over at the JAAA
Senior National Championships.
Williams-Mills, a five-time World Championships medalist,
racked up her seventh Jamaican national championship in the women’s 400 meters,
racing to a winning time of 50.01 and stamping her ticket to Moscow. She is the
10th Gator to punch her ticket to the World Championships.
Three-time NCAA Champion Dedric Dukes (Miami, Fla.) made
the finals of the men’s 200, coming in as the youngest athlete in the field and
the only returning collegian for the 2013-14 season. Dukes finished eighth in
the final in 20.45 and raced to a semifinal time of 20.73.
The event served as qualification for the 14th IAAF World
Outdoor Championships in Moscow, Russia, August 10-18, 2013. The top three
finishers in each event at the USA Outdoor Championships advance to Moscow,
provided the athlete has the A or B standard in his or her respective event. If
the athlete does not have the standard but finishes in the top three, the
athlete may “standard chase,” which means athlete needs to turn in at least a B
standard at a USATF-sanctioned event to earn the opportunity to compete in
Moscow.
There were 11 members of the 2013 Florida track & field
rosters competing at the 2013 USA Outdoor Championships and two at the USA
Junior Outdoor Track & Field Championships. Five-time USTFCCCA National
Men’s Coach of the Year Mike Holloway is the head men’s coach for Team
USA this summer. Holloway was a member of the Team USA coaching staff at the
2012 Olympic Games, working as the sprints and hurdles coach in London.
