EUGENE, Ore. — Lady Tiger sophomore LaTavia Thomas had the spotlight all to herself as she was the only LSU athlete to compete on Monday at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials with an appearance in the 800-meter final at historic Hayward Field.
Thomas, who lined up as the youngest athlete in the field, finished the two-lap race in 2 minutes, 5.15 seconds to earn an 11th-place finish in her first ever Olympic Trials experience.
American great Hazel Clark set the pace early and ran a blistering 1:59.82 to win this year’s U.S. Outdoor title and punch her ticket to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Also qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Team was runner-up Alice Schmidt (2:00.46), who already met the Olympic “A” qualifying standard in the 800 meters with a top time of 1:58.75 coming into the meet.
Despite missing out on the Olympic Games this summer, Thomas has already established herself as one of the premier young 800-meter runners in the United States and will surely to make a run at the U.S. Olympic Team when the games head to London in 2012.
“This really was a life-changing experience for me to run against these kinds of athletes,” Thomas said. “I just wanted to go out there and see where I’m at and just have a lot of fun with it. I think it just shows me that I need to train a lot harder going into next season to be able to keep up. Four years from now, I plan to be one of the top runners and make a strong push to go to London.”
Thomas enjoyed a breakout sophomore season at LSU in 2008 as she helped the Lady Tigers win a national championship at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships two weeks ago.
She became only the third Lady Tiger in program history to win an NCAA title in the 800 meters with a gold-medal winning performance at the NCAA Indoor Championships in March. She went on to finish runner-up in the event during the outdoor season, while also running on the NCAA indoor champion and NCAA outdoor runner-up 4×400-meter relay team.
Thomas is in select company as former Lady Tiger middle distance standouts Marian Burnett and Neisha Bernard-Thomas are the only other athletes to win NCAA titles in the 800 meters.
“I don’t think there is any question that LaTavia is one of the elite half milers at the NCAA level and that she will only improve with two more seasons in our program,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “She’s been an important part of our success these last two years, and we’ll count on her to be one of leaders both on and off the track in 2009.”
Athletes will be given Tuesday and Wednesday off to recover for the start of the second weekend of the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials as the action continues Thursday at Hayward Field. LSU’s athletes will not return to action until Friday when Xavier Carter, Muna Lee and Stephanie Durst line up in the prelims of the 200 meters and Walter Davis competes in the triple jump.