BATON ROUGE — LSU greats and 2008 Olympians Lolo Jones and Richard Thompson join Tiger All-American Trindon Holliday in headlining another world-class field competing Saturday at the LSU Alumni Gold as the Tigers and Lady Tigers play host to their final home meet of the outdoor season as part of Super Tiger Weekend.
The finals of this year’s LSU Alumni Gold will begin following a brief opening ceremony at 2:45 p.m. CT at the Bernie Moore Track Stadium. All preliminary events will be held earlier in the day beginning at 9 a.m. in the field and 11:30 a.m. on the track.
The LSU Alumni Gold attracts a world-class field year in and year out, and the 2009 edition is no exception as many top college and professional athletes are scheduled to compete on Saturday.
The Lady Tigers enter the meet ranked No. 4 in the country, while the Tigers are ranked No. 6 in the latest power ranked by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. They welcome such programs as Texas A&M to Baton Rouge this weekend as the Aggie women enter the meet with the nation’s No. 1 ranking, while the Aggie men are ranked No. 2 nationally.
LSU head coach Dennis Shaver said he expects a competition full of excitement as fans will have the opportunity to enjoy the sport like never before at LSU.
“This is just going to be a great track meet for our fans to come and see,” Shaver said. “We’ll see top athletes from around the world competing at Alumni Gold, and many who are opening up the outdoor season for the first time. We also have some of the very best teams at the collegiate level coming in, which will make this a meet unlike any we’ve hosted in recent years.
“We also have a brand new video board that allows us to do a lot of different things to inform our fans about the sport, as well as to entertain throughout the afternoon. This is the first time that we have been able to put on a production of a track meet like we want to do here at LSU.”
This year’s LSU Alumni Gold will heat up following a brief opening ceremony as the final of the men’s and women’s 4×100-meter relays are set to run beginning at 3 p.m.
The women’s race will feature three of the Top 10 sprint relay teams in the nation as Texas A&M will run with the nation’s fastest time in the event this season. The Lady Tigers will challenge for the title as they follow closely with the No. 3 performance in the country, while Houston is also in the mix while lining up with the 10th-fastest time in the NCAA this spring.
The men’s sprint relay is sure to be just as exciting as the second-ranked Aggies and third-ranked Tigers will go head-to-head for the event crown, while the Canadian National Team has sent their sprint relay team to Baton Rouge to run in what is sure to be a fast final.
Perhaps the most anticipated finals of the afternoon are the women’s 100 hurdles at 3:40 p.m., the women’s 100 meters at 4:10 p.m. and the men’s 100 meters at 4:15 p.m.
Jones, a 2008 U.S. Olympian and World Indoor champion, will run her first race in the 100-meter hurdles of the 2009 season on Saturday. She competed at the Olympic Games in Beijing after running away with the event title at the U.S. Olympic Trials last summer. Jones finished the 2008 season ranked No. 1 in the world in the 100 hurdles with a personal best of 12.43 seconds.
Joining Jones in the final of the women’s 100-meter hurdles will be former Lady Tigers standouts Nickiesha Wilson and Jessica Ohanaja. Wilson was the NCAA runner-up in the event a year ago, while she also captured the NCAA title in the 400-meter hurdles in 2008, while Ohanaja earned a fifth-place finish in the 100 hurdles at the NCAA meet last season.
In addition, the event will feature four of the top 13 performers in the NCAA this season with the likes of Vashti Thomas of Texas A&M (fourth), Tenaya Jones of LSU (seventh), Gabby Mayo of Texas A&M (12th) and Seun Adigun of Houston (13th) scheduled to run.
The excitement doesn’t end there as the final of the women’s 100-meter dash features each of the last two NCAA champions and a number of NCAA title favorites this season.
LSU great Kelly Baptiste, who is the 2008 NCAA champion in the event, will run in the heat with former Lady Tiger star Sherry Fletcher, the 2007 NCAA champion. The race will also feature a trio of 2009 NCAA Indoor All-Americans in Samantha Henry of LSU, Kenyanna Wilson of LSU and Porscha Lucas of Texas A&M as they look to establish themselves as NCAA title contenders.
If that weren’t enough excitement, Thompson will run his first 100-meter race of the 2009 season in the men’s final. A two-time silver medalist in the 100-meter dash and 4×100-meter relay at the Beijing Olympics this past summer, Thompson is also the reigning NCAA champion in the event.
Thompson’s personal best of 9.89 run in the Olympic final is the collegiate record in the event. It was also second only to the world-record run of 9.69 by Jamaican gold medalist Usain Bolt.
He will run in the second section of the 100-meter final, while Holliday will square off against the likes of fellow All-American and NCAA 100-meter favorite Gerald Phiri of Texas A&M.
“The level of competition we will see this weekend is what excites me about this meet most of all, and it is not just limited to the sprinting events,” Shaver said. “We’re going to see world-class performances across all of the event areas, which will give the fans who come out an opportunity to really get a feel for what the sport is all about. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
As the name might suggest, this year’s LSU Alumni Gold will feature a plethora of athletes in the competition who once wore the purple and gold as collegians, including former standouts Deonna Lawrence (400), Hazel-Ann Regis (400), Isa Phillips (400), Neisha Bernard-Thomas (800), Marian Burnett (800), Tanya Osborne (800), Elkana Kosgei (800), Reuben Twijukye (800), Ryan Fontenot (110 hurdles) and Kelly Willie (4×400 relay).
In addition, 10 seniors will be recognized as this will be their final home meet in an LSU uniform. They include Holliday, Rabun Fox, Jeremy Hicks, Patrick Lee, Jacob Simmons, Adam Wilcox, Monique Cabral, Anna Lyons, Christina Porter and Mallory Thompson.
After playing host to the LSU Alumni Gold on Saturday, LSU will wrap up the regular season on April 23-25 as they make the trip to Philadelphia for the 115th running of the Penn Relays.