Chula Vista Meet Qualified 7 for Olympic Trials — So How Did They Fare in Oregon?

USA Track and Field, the sport’s governing body, is something like America — with national and local leadership. But instead of states, USATF has associations.

Fifty-six of them.

One is the San Diego-Imperial Association, which held its annual outdoor championships June 8 at the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center.

Also like the U.S. system, USATF associations pave the way for elite performers. Some make it to the Olympic Trials. Others become Olympians.

How did San Diego-Imperial do this year?

Rick Reaser, who helps run events at San Diego State University, was meet director of the June 8 event and tallied entries with Paris ambitions. (The event also was listed on the World Athletics Global Calendar, so athlete marks counted for world rankings.)

In a report to local association president Paul Greer, Reaser counted four men and three women who qualified for the Trials in Eugene, Oregon, based on their marks in Chula Vista.

He noted that the meet was held a day before the “cutoff for obtaining a qualifying mark for the U.S. Olympic Trials, which made it a huge draw as a ‘last chance’ meet for elites and professionals.”

Besides former SDSU track star Danae Dyer, who ran a personal best 12.98 in the 100-meter hurdles to qualify for the Oregon meet, covered here, these athletes also met Trials standards at Chula Vista:

Pole vaulters Trevor Stephenson, Jacob Englar and Scott Toney of Penn and triple jumpers Imani Oliver, Jaimie Robinson and Timothy White.

How’d they do at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field?

Stephenson, 24, cleared 5.67 meters — 18 feet 7 1/4 — in Chula Vista. In Eugene, he missed three times at the opening height of 5.40 (17-8 1/2).

Englar, 24, went 5.62 meters — 18-5 1/4 — in Chula Vista but only 17-8 1/2 in Eugene, making that height on the second try before missing three times at 5.50 (18-0 1/2).

Toney, 22, also went 5.62 in Chula Vista but made only 5.50 at Eugene before taking one try at 5.60 (18-4 1/2) before passing to 5.65 (18-6 1/2) where he missed twice and tied for 18th overall.

In the women’s triple jump, Oliver, 31, of the Tracksmith club went 13.93 (45-8 1/2) in Chula Vista and 13.70 (44-11 1/2) in Eugene, where she took fourth overall.

(Had she gone 13.93 in Eugene, she’d be in the top three — but not going to Paris for lack of a qualifying distance or rankings in the top 32 worldwide.)

Robinson, 25, went 13.53 (44-4 3/4) at Chula Vista but only 12.97 (42-6 3/4) in Eugene, taking 18th in the women’s qualifying round and not making the final.

And White, 29, had a slightly over-the-allowable-wind 16.44 (53-11 1/4) mark in the men’s triple jump in Chula Vista but didn’t start in Eugene.

• Watch: Highlight slide shows every day of the U.S. Olympic Trials

In 2016, Arizona State wide receiver White took 18th in qualifying at the Eugene Trials and didn’t make the final. But in 2021, White was fifth in the final, going 16.59 (54-5 1/4) — only 5 inches short of making the Tokyo Olympic team.

Besides these, Olympic silver medalist Sandi Morris pole vaulted 4.75 (15-7) at the June 8 meet — trying to set a new world season best. (She fell short.) In Eugene, she stunned experts by taking fourth — thus missing the Paris team — with a best jump of 4.68 (15-4¼).

Besides vaulter Morris, Reaser counted 26 athletes who competed in Chula Vista and also were at the Trials based on marks from other meets:

• Hailey Fune — Women’s 100-meter hurdles
• Samuel Hartman — Men’s 400-meter hurdles
• Brian Matthews — Men’s 400-meter hurdles
• Ka’leila Abrille — Women’s pole vault
• Mackenzie Beukes — Women’s pole vault
• Olen Oates — Men’s pole vault
• Nathan Richartz — Men’s pole vault
• Cole Walsh — Men’s pole vault
• Monae Nichols — Women’s long jump
• Tiffany Flynn — Women’s long jump
• Madisen Richards — Women’s long jump
• Jasmine Todd — Women’s long jump
• Kiana Davis — Women’s long jump
• Isaac Grimes — Men’s long jump
• Rayvon Grey — Men’s long jump
• Tori Franklin — Women’s triple jump (made Paris team)
• Danylle Kurywchak — Women’s triple jump
• Alexis Ellis — Women’s triple jump
• Isaiah Griffith — Men’s triple jump
• Anthony Applequist — Men’s triple jump
• Chari Hawkins – Heptathlon (Made Paris team)
• Nick Christie — Men’s 20K race walk
• Emmanuel Corvera — Men’s 20K race walk
• Michael Mannozzi — Men’s 20K race walk
• Miranda Melville – Women’s 20K race walk
• Celina Lepe — Women’s 20K race walk

Not all athletes with San Diego ties competed at Chula Vista last month.

Rancho Bernardo High School grad Nia Akins, 25, won the Olympic Trials 800 in 1:57.36 — and is now a medal favorite in Paris.

But 2023 world discus champion Lagi Tausaga of Spring Valley fouled three times in qualifying and didn’t make the finals. And 2022 world hammer throw champion Brooke Andersen (a graduate of Rancho Buena Vista High School in Vista) fouled three times in the final and finished 12th.

In the heptathlon, Tokyo Olympian Annie Kunz of North Park injured herself while warming up for the opening event — the 100-meter hurdles — and barely finished that race, hopping on one leg afterward and dropping out of the event.

The Union-Tribune’s Mark Zeigler reported that two weeks before her Trials race she felt a twinge in her plantar fascia, then felt it tear during warmups in Eugene.

“I’m still trying to process everything,” Kunz, 31, said on social media. “I’m not sure what’s next for me. Right now I’m just focused on healing physically and emotionally.”

In the race walks, Tokyo Olympian and El Cajon native Nick Christie, 32, won the 20-kilometer race in the neighboring city of Springfield, Oregon, but his time wasn’t fast enough to qualify for Paris.

Same for 20K runner-up Miranda Melville, 35, of Chula Vista, who competed in the 2016 Rio Games but hasn’t met the qualifying or rankings standards for Paris.

But as a team, Christie and Melville rank 30th in the world in the new Olympic event of mixed race walk relay. Only the top 25 are in. A very slim chance exists that five teams ahead of them won’t opt to compete.

That will be known July 7.

At least two other former SDSU track stars are hoping to compete in Paris — Jamaican triple jumper Shanieka Ricketts and Armenian sprinter/hurdler Allison Halverson.

At the Jamaican Olympic Trials last week in Kingston, Ricketts bounded 14.50 (47-7) to win her event. She’s currently ranked second in the world — behind only Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas.

But Rojas, the defending Olympic champion and world record holder, won’t compete in Paris. She announced in April that she suffered an Achilles tendon injury in practice.

That leaves Halverson, a former Aztec heptathlete who changed her national affiliation from American to Armenian (her mother has Armenian ancestry) in hopes of being named to that Eastern European nation’s Olympic team in either the 400-meter hurdles or the 100-meter dash.

On June 1, Halverson posted that she had set an Armenian national record with a personal best of 53.37 in the 400-meter dash.

She also expects to learn early this month whether she’s ticketed for Paris.

Among the interested parties — her father, Rick Reaser, the Chula Vista meet organizer.