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2012 Millrose Games: Matthew Centrowitz, Bernard Lagat, Jenny Simpson Headline Distance Races
Matthew Centrowitz Racing NYRR Wanamaker Mile
By David Monti (c) 2012 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Used with permission.NEW YORK (10-Jan) -- Matthew Centrowitz, the reigning NCAA and USA 1500m champion and last summer's 1500m bronze medalist at the IAAF World Championships, will make his Millrose Games debut on Saturday, February 11, headlining the NYRR Wanamaker Mile. See the Millrose Games Web site at www.armorytrack.com for meet information and to purchase tickets.
Matthew Centrowitz, 22, who last November left the NCAA ranks to turn pro, said he was particularly excited to compete in the Armory in Upper Manhattan, the same facility where his father, two-time Olympian Matt Centrowitz, trained four days a week when he competed for New York’s Power Memorial Academy. The elder Centrowitz competed on a track on the Armory's wood floor; son Matthew will run on a state-of-the-art 200-meter banked Mondo track known for fast times, like Bernard Lagat's USA two-mile record set last season.
"I'm excited to be running and it will be my first mile/1500m of the year," Centrowitz said through a statement. "To debut in the Millrose Games with my father and sister, who will be competing there as well, I can't think of a better meet to do it in."
For the first time, the Wanamaker Mile will be sponsored and managed by the New York Road Runners (NYRR), the largest not-for-profit road race organizer in the United States, which founded and organizes events like the ING New York City Marathon and the Fifth Avenue Mile. The NYRR's president and CEO, Mary Wittenberg, said that Centrowitz should run well in the Armory and will connect with young fans.
"Already early in his career, Matthew Centrowitz has shown he can race with the world's best so he should be very comfortable on the world famous NYRR Wanamaker Mile and Millrose Games stage," said Wittenberg, an avid runner and former Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier. "We're thrilled to have Matthew race with us in the Armory where he'll provide a jolt of motivation to all of the kids who are in our school-based running programs who, like Matthew, also have big dreams."
Centrowitz will open his season at the New Balance Grand Prix in Boston on Saturday, February 4, where he will run the two-mile, before racing at the Millrose Games a week later. He said that his training has gone well.
"I'm well ahead of where I was last year," said Centrowitz. "I had a great month of training in December. I'm looking forward to kick-starting the year with a bang this indoor season."
Lauren Centrowitz, Matthew's older sister, will also compete at the Millrose Games, competing in the first NYRR Wanamaker Metric Mile for Women. That 1500m race will also feature world champion Jenny Simpson, whom organizers announced last month.
There are also athlete videos available to view at www.armorytrack.com, including a video interview with Matthew Centrowitz.
Bernard Lagat Hopes to Take Back USA 5000m Record at Millrose Games
(07-Dec) -- Bernard Lagat hopes to regain his "full set" of American indoor track records at the new Millrose Games at the Armory in New York City next February 11, when he competes in the 5000m. Lagat formerly held every USA indoor mark from 1500m through the 5000m before Galen Rupp clocked 13:11.44 in Birmingham last February to break Lagat's previous record by just 6/100ths of a second."The 5000-meters at the Millrose Games at the Armory is a race I'm really excited about," Lagat said through a statement. "Galen broke my U.S. record so of course I have to try and get it back."
Last winter, Lagat competed on the Armory's fast 200m banked track for the first time, breaking Doug Padilla's 21 year-old USA two-mile record in the New York Road Runners Deuce Record Challenge, clocking 8:10.07. He had a great experience there, he said.
"I had a really good run at the Armory when I broke the U.S. two-mile record so I'm looking forward to coming back for another good run," he said.
Lagat has been a Millrose Games fixture since he won his first Wanamaker Mile title in 2001. He went on to win that event eight times, surpassing the famed "Chairman of the Boards," Eamonn Coghlan.
Before the Millrose Games, Lagat will run the mile at the new U.S. Open meeting at Madison Square Garden on January 28.
Jenny Simpson Racing First Wanamaker Metric Mile for Women
By David Monti (c) 2011 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved.Used with permission.
(07-Oct) -- World 1500m champion Jenny Simpson will headline the first-ever Wanamaker Metric Mile for Women at the 105th Millrose Games at the Armory in New York City next February. Simpson's participation in the meet was announced in a joint statement released by the Armory Foundation, which owns the Millrose Games, and the New York Road Runners, which will be sponsoring and organizing both the traditional Wanamaker Mile for men and the new Metric Mile (1500m) for women.
"I am really looking forward to coming to New York for the first ever Women's Wanamaker Metric Mile in February," Simpson said through a prepared statement. "It will be the highlight of my indoor season and at one of my favorite running venues. It's great that the New York Road Runners has gotten behind this meet."
The meet, the oldest indoor track meet in the United States, is scheduled for Saturday, February 11, and will feature high school action in the afternoon followed by elite competition in the evening. The 2012 edition of the meet will be the first at the Armory, which boasts one of the country's fastest 200m, banked indoor tracks. Bernard Lagat set the American two mile record on the track there last February.
Simpson, 25, has already enjoyed competitive success at in New York this year. She won the mile at the New Balance Games last January in a world-leading 4:28.60, then after her gold medal run in Daegu, Korea, at the World Championships last August, she won the Fifth Avenue Mile last month in 4:22.3 in her first-ever road mile. Meet director Ray Flynn thinks that Simpson is just the first of a string of top athletes who will be competing at the Millrose Games.
"We want to announce that the Millrose Games at the Armory will be an outstanding meet that will attract the world's great track & field athletes," said Flynn, who is still the Irish record-holder for the mile 3:49.77 personal best. "The first-ever New York Road Runners Wanamaker Metric Mile for Women will help to achieve that."
The New York Road Runners have long stood for gender equity, producing the first-ever road race for women, the New York Mini-Marathon in 1972. President and CEO Mary Wittenberg saw an opportunity to expand the Wanamaker Mile to include women. With Flynn, she chose the 1500m distance for women to allow fans to see a race at a different distance, and to tie back to the meet's historic connection to the four-minute mark (the first sub-4:00 mile at Millrose was 3:59.7 by Tony Waldrop in 1974). The meet did have a 1500m for women in past editions, and the meet record is 4:00.8 by Mary Decker set back in 1980.
"We are pleased to be partnering with the Armory in helping bring the best in our sport to New York City by taking an active role in assembling the fields for the Wanamaker Mile," said Wittenberg. "It is high time that there was a women's Wanamaker mile and we are especially excited about making that happen."
The Wanamaker Mile for men has been held every year since 1926, and is named after Rodman Wanamaker of the now-defunct Wanamaker's department store.