EUGENE -- In a highly physical men's 1,500 meters at the NCAA track and field championships, Wisconsin sophomore Oliver Hoare emerged from the jostling, shoving, and bumping over the first two laps of the race and outsprinted the pre-race favorite down the homestretch to win the collegiate title on Friday at Hayward Field.
Hoare's winning time, 3 minutes, 44.77 seconds, was slow by the standards of college running, but typical of championship races, where a sit-and-kick strategy usually prevails.
That was the case Friday as a mass of 12 bodies, capable of moving at high rates of speed, were tightly packed together -- think Manhattan subway car at rush hour -- and jockeying for position until the bell lap.