Alumni Round-Up: USA Championships, Tour de France, Pan-Am Games
7/29/2019 11:30:00 AM | Men's Track & Field, Women's Track & Field
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Former University of Michigan track and field competitors excelled around the world this past weekend, and not just in track and field.
Several alumni posted top-10 finishes at the USATF Outdoor Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, over the weekend, while Mike Woods made history in the Tour de France. Additionally, two-time All-American Avery Evenson represented Team USA on the international stage in the Pan-American Games triathlon.
USATF Outdoor Championships
Several former Wolverine standouts just missed out on opportunities to represent Team USA at the 2019 IAAF World Championships in Doha, Qatar, later this fall.
Mason Ferlic, the 2016 NCAA 3,000-meter steeplechase champion, took fifth in his signature event in 8:37.99 on Saturday. While he did not secure one of the three Team USA roster spots for Worlds, he positioned himself well as an alternate for the team.
Should champion HIllary Bor win the international Diamond League title later this summer, he would earn a bye to the World Championships and open up a roster spot for an additional American in the event. Fourth-place finisher Bernard Keter did not achieve the IAAF qualifying standard, rendering him ineligible to compete. Ferlic, however, has met the standard and would be next in line to don the Red, White and Blue.
Multiple-time All-American Shannon Osika was sixth in her main 1,500-meter event, running a career-best 4:04.80 in the final. Osika kept pace with the front of the chase pack behind an early breakaway leader, and found herself just off the back of a sprint toward the finish in the final 100 meters.
Multiple-time All-American Steven Bastien was the highest finisher on the weekend for the Wolverines as he took fourth in the decathlon with a career-best score of 8,023 points. He performed just below career-best level in almost every single event -- an impressive feat for a decathlete -- and managed a personal record in the javelin at 57.23m (187 feet, 9 inches) in the penultimate of the 10 events.
Multiple-time All-American Grant Cartwright was 15th in the hammer throw with a best of 65.77m (215-9) and Kira Garry was 17th in the women's steeplechase at 10:23.99.
Tour de France
Mike Woods, who was a Big Ten champion and three-time NCAA Championships qualifier for the Wolverines from 2004-07, made history with a 32nd-place overall finish in the Tour de France cycling race.
Never before Sunday had a man who had previously run a sub-four-minute mile -- the Canadian Woods did so twice as a Wolverine in 2005 and 2006 -- also finished the Tour de France, according to CyclingTips.com.
He also finished 15th in the climber's standings.
Woods was running top-10 in the overall standings early in the proceedings before a crash on stage eight set him back more than 14 minutes. Four days later he crashed again, this time with a pair of broken ribs to show for it.
However, he managed to rally back. After falling down as far as 54th in the standings after the 14th of 21 stages, he steadily climbed back up. His best stage finish of the ride came on the 18th stage as he took seventh.
Riding in the jersey of EF Education First, he helped the team to a fourth-place showing in the team standings. He was the third-highest finisher on the team, behind seventh-place Rigoberto Uran and 27th-place Tanel Kangert.
Pan-America Games
Two-time cross country All-American Avery Evenson finished 14th overall in the triathlon competition at the Pan-American Games in Lima, Peru, on Saturday (July 27).
Evenson, who completed her collegiate eligibility this fall with a 38th-place NCAA Cross Country Championships finish, was the second-best American across the line in the 1,500-meter swim, 40-kilometer bike and 10-kilometer run competition.
She completed the event in 2:08.20, just over seven minutes off the lead.
A triathlete prior to transferring to Michigan in 2016, Evenson focused on running during her time in Ann Arbor. With her collegiate track and field and cross country days now behind her, she has returned to the triathlon with the goal of making Team USA for next summer's Olympics in Tokyo.
Players Mentioned
