Five With ASU T&F Ties to Compete at IAAF Champs
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TEMPE – The Arizona State University track and field program will be well-represented this season in Moscow with five with Sun Devil ties set to compete at the 2013 IAAF World Championships, taking place from August 10-18.
The five Sun Devils on the entry lists for the bi-annual event represent the 12th-highest tally among all Division I institutions. Ryan Whiting (shot put), Dwight Phillips (long jump), Charonda Williams (200m) and Amy Hastings (10,000m) will all represent the United States while 2013 graduate Christabel Nettey (long jump) will compete for Canada.
Whiting enters the week as the favorite in the men’s shot put competition with his world-leading mark of 22.28m (73-01.25). The five-time NCAA Champion has lost just twice this season and holds the season’s four longest throws. He was the 2012 world indoor champion in the event and is ASU’s best shot at earning a medal in throwing at the World Championships in program history.
Despite the Americans typical dominance of the shot put event, they will be looking to end a four-year losing streak in both World Championships and the Olympics.
Phillips enters the competition as a four-time World Champion and the defending IAAF world champion after claiming the title in 2011 in Daegu. Thanks to that victory, Phillips earned a free pass to this year’s competition in what will likely end up as the final World Championship for one of the all-time greats.
A four-time All-American at Arizona State and school record holder in the long jump, Phillips went on to become the most decorated Sun Devil internationally of all time in a career that also includes Olympic gold in 2004.
Three-time All-American and recently Sun Devil graduate Christabel Nettey heads up the women’s Sun Devil representatives this weekend. She holds the world’s 20th-best jump in 2013 with her school-record setting leap of 6.75m (22-01.75). She was the Pac-12 champion in the event this past season and was the runner-up indoors as well. Nettey is making her first-ever World Championship appearance.
2012 American 10,000-meter champion Amy Hastings returns for her second consecutive World Championship appearance after a very impressive 11th-place finish in the event at the 2012 London Olympics this past season.
Hastings was fourth at the U.S. Championships last month but earned one of the three berths at the World Championships thanks to having already posted the ‘A’ Standard in the event.
Charonda Williams rounds out ASU’s representatives as she, too, makes her second appearance at the World Championships. She was a semifinalists at the 2009 Berlin Championships. Williams was a three-time All-American at Arizona State and played a key role in the Sun Devils’ 2008 NCAA Indoor Championship.
Nettey will be the first to see action this weekend, as she will compete at 8:40 a.m. Arizona time in the preliminary round of the long jump competition. Stay tuned to TheSunDevils.com throughout the week for updates.