BOSTON — Former Lady Tiger great Lolo Jones arrived at the 2007 AT&T USA Indoor Track and Field Championships among the favorites to compete for the title in the 60-meter hurdles and she delivered by claiming her first U.S. Indoor title in the event as a professional.
Jones, an 11-time All-American and three-time national champion hurdler during her prolific career at LSU from 2001-04, took top honors in the event by clocking a new personal best time of 7.88 seconds in the event finals at the Reggie Lewis Track & Athletic Center on Sunday.
The native of Des Moines, Iowa, was quick out of the blocks and beat both 2005 U.S. Indoor champion Danielle Carruthers (7.92) and Nichole Denby (7.93) to the tape as she shaved one one-hundredth of a second off of her previous personal best time set two weeks ago. For her effort, Jones was voted the top female performer of the weekend across all event areas.
“I feel really good, but it was hard though,” Jones said following her race. “I just came back from Europe where I was running every couple of days and then I had two weeks off. I thought I was going to go crazy, but it is my first national title and that is so exciting. I couldn’t be happier.”
Jones has enjoyed a successful indoor campaign in which she has earned a pair of victories and two runner-up finishes in Europe in the past month, claiming titles in the 60-meter hurdles at the Sparkassen Athletics Cup in Leipzig, Germany, on Feb. 9 (7.95) followed by a win at the BW-Bank-Meeting in Karlsruhe, Germany, on Feb. 11 (7.87).
In the field events, former LSU national champion pole vaulter Russ Buller just missed winning the first U.S. Indoor title of his stellar career as he took second place in the event after clearing a height of 18 feet, 4 ? inches on Saturday. The defending U.S. Outdoor champion finished runner-up to U.S. champion Jeff Hartwig, who cleared a height of 19-0 ?.