Hazle finished second in Sunday night’s javelin finals at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials.
Leigh Smith finished fifth and will be accompanying Hazle on the Olympic team.
Hazle and Smith were the only two competitors with the Olympic “A” qualifying standard of 268 feet, 4 inches.
Hazle threw 248-7 (75.76 meters), while Smith recorded a throw of 243-7 (74.24).
The top finisher was Bobby Smith, who threw 249-6 (76.06 meters). American record holder Breaux Greer was eliminated in the preliminary round.
Allyson Felix felt no final-day pressure at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials. She’s just that good.
Wallace Spearmon, Jenn Stuczynski and Marshevet Hooker are good, too, but all had to endure their share of bumps, bruises and thumping hearts before their Olympic trips were sewn up Sunday.
The day after Tyson Gay’s untimely fall reminded everyone there are no sure things in track, the two sprinters and the pole vaulter worked harder than anyone might have imagined to make it to Beijing.
Spearmon, thought to be a shoo-in in the men’s 200, needed a late burst to win the third and final spot in that sprint.
Stuczynski set the American record in the pole vault at 16 feet, 1¾ inches, but only after she missed on her first two jumps at the lowest height and needed an emotion-draining third and final attempt to keep her chances alive.
And Hooker, who ran the fifth-fastest time ever in the 100 (it was wind aided) to start the meet last weekend, crashed across the line to win the final spot in the 200 by .01 seconds. She needed that because she didn’t qualify for the 100 despite her fast times in qualifying.
“I felt relief, I felt blessed, I felt joy, I felt everything at once,” said Hooker, who paid the price with scrapes on her elbow, hip, hand and leg. “And I felt the sting.”
That pain will go away.
Others, like Anwar Moore, will have to live with it for four years. Moore, an underdog who finished first here at the Prefontaine Classic last month, was in third place with about 15 meters left, but stumbled over the final hurdle in the 110-meter race and wound up sprawled on the ground.
Later, three-time 1,500 national champion Alan Webb finished fifth in one of the more competitive fields at trials. The qualifiers were Bernard Lagat (Kenya), Lopez Lomong (Sudan) and Leonel Manzano (Mexico) - three men born in different lands who made it to America and will now wear red, white and blue at the Olympics.
“That means America is a melting pot,” Lagat said. “America is where they welcome everybody regardless of their place or birth.”
Lagat, also the champion in the 5,000, was the only person over the two-week meet to win two events.
Felix cruised to victory in the 200, finishing in 21.82 seconds to secure the trip she didn’t wrap up last week in the 100, when she finished out of the top three.
It made for a long wait, but she rolled with it.
“I’m a laid-back person. I was just relaxing, waiting for this, thinking about it, waiting to get started,” she said. “I’m relieved, but it’s not done yet hardly. Now it’s time to go back to work.”
Spearmon figured to coast to victory but he finished third, just ahead of Rodney Martin to get the final spot in the 200, the one freed up when Gay fell Saturday in the quarterfinals.
“I got third, and the question is now, if he was here would I have made the team?” Spearmon said. “I can’t answer that question. I’m here. That’s all I can tell you.”
Gay’s MRI showed a strain in a muscle in the back of his left leg. He’s restricted to light workouts for the next two weeks, but said he’d be ready for the Olympics.
