Huskers Added to IAAF World Championships

Lincoln ? On Tuesday, Aug. 4, current Husker Lehann Fourie and former Husker Peter van der Westhuizen learned that they will be competing at the 12th IAAF World Championships on Aug. 15-23 in Berlin, Germany. Athletics South Africa (ASA) announced that Fourie will compete in the 110-meter hurdles and van der Westhuizen will run the 1,500 meters, with the two joining 23 other men and six women at the international meet to represent South Africa.

 

Fourie became eligible for the team after he reached the “B” qualifying standard at the World University Games in Belgrade, Serbia, where he finished runner-up in the 110-meter hurdles. In the semi finals, Fourie blazed to a personal best of 13.56, well below the “B” standard of 13.62 and just one-hundredth of a second off the “A” standard of 13.55.  A two-time NCAA qualifier, Fourie has also captured four All-Big 12 honors, including runner-up finishes in the 110- and 400-meter hurdles at the 2009 Big 12 Outdoor Championships.

 

After completing his Husker career following the 2008 season, van der Westhuizen has continued to compete all over the world, setting personal bests in the 1,000 meters, 1,500 meters and mile in 2009. A three-time NCAA qualifier in the outdoor 1,500 meters and one-time qualifier in the indoor mile, van der Westhuizen broke the 1,500-meter “A” qualifying-standard of 3:36.60 at the Reebok Grand Prix on May 30, 2009, in New York City, finishing fourth with a personal-best time of 3:35.33. He was then one of 13 runners to break four minutes in the mile at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Ore., on June 7, running a personal-best of 3:56.26. Recently, van der Westhuizen broke his personal best in the 1,000 meters at the DN Galan in Stockholm, Sweden, on July 30, running a time of 2:17.81.

 

Fourie and van der Westhuizen will not be the only current or former Huskers competing in Berlin, as Kingston, Jamaica, native Nicholas Gordon and Whitby, Ontario, Canada, native Priscilla Lopes-Schliep will be representing their home countries.

 

The 2009 NCAA indoor long jump champion and 2009 Big 12 indoor and outdoor long jump champion, Gordon surpassed the long jump “B” standard of 26-5 at the Jamaican Nationals with a personal-best leap of 26-7 1/4. Gordon will enter the meet tied with five other jumpers for 27th-best jump in the world this year.

 

Following a bronze-medal performance in the 100-meter hurdles at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, Lopes-Schliep has been one of the top hurdlers in the world this year. She currently owns four of the top 10 times in the world this season, including the No. 3 time, which she set at the DN Galan on July 31, when she ran 12.51 to win the meet. In Stockholm, Lopes-Schliep beat out both Lolo Jones (USA) and Sally McLellan (Australia), who own the No. 1 and No. 2 times in the world with Jones running 12.47 on July 20, and McLellan running 12.50 on July 28.

 

The World Championships are set to be held at Olympic Stadium, where Jesse Owens became an international track star. The meet will be the first major international meet to be held at the Olympic Stadium since the 1936 Olympic Games, where Owens won four gold medals in the 100 meter, 200 meters, 4x100-meter relay and long jump. The meet dates back to 1983 when it was first held in Helsinki Finland, with 153 countries represented by 1,355 athletes. The next two meets were held every four years, in 1987 and 1991, before the meet then moved to being competed every two years, with the last meet in Osaka, Japan in 2007. All-time, the Americans hold a commanding lead in the medal count at 228, followed by Russia with 120 and Germany with 26.

 

For more information on the World Championships, check out http://berlin.iaaf.org.