Mt. SAC Hosts Top Tuneup Meet

Five title-winners from the USA Track & Field championships last month and three reigning NCAA champions are scheduled to compete today and Sunday in the inaugural USATF Mid-Summer Games at Mt. San Antonio College.

The meet, which starts at 3 p.m. each day, is designed to give national-class athletes not competing on the European circuit a chance to test themselves before representing the U.S. in the Pan American Games at Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on Aug. 6-10, the World championships at Paris on Aug. 23-31, or both.

“Not all of our best athletes can get to Europe, let alone some of our second-tier athletes who might still be members of our national teams,” meet director Skip Stolley said.

The USATF champions scheduled to compete are Carl Brown in the men’s discus throw, James Parker in the men’s hammer, Yuliana Perez in the women’s triple jump, Erica Wheeler in the women’s javelin and Shelia Burrell in the heptathlon.

The NCAA champions entered are Mardy Scales of Middle Tennessee in the men’s 100 meters, Adam Steele of Minnesota in the men’s 400 and Becky Breisch of Nebraska in the women’s shotput.

Burrell, 31, was the bronze medalist in the heptathlon in the 2001 World championships and was ranked third in the world in 2002.

Steele entered the NCAA championships with a career best of 45.57 seconds in the 400 but ran 44.57 in the final to edge Otis Harris of South Carolina, who had the same time, and Minnesota teammate Mitch Potter by a hundredth of a second.

Potter will also run in the 400 at 8:20 tonight.

-- John Ortega