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THURSDAY JANUARY 23. 2014
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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TRACK AND FIELD
TARA BRYANT/KANSAN
Sophomore hurdler Michael Stigler jumps over the last hurdle, ahead of 2012 champion Bershawn "Batman" Jackson. in the invitational 400m hurdle event at the Kansas Relays. on April 20, 2013.
Universities recruit from 2-year colleges
JOEY ANGUIANO sports@kansan.com
After a fantastic outing in Lincoln, Neb., at the Holiday Inn Invitation, the Kansas track team returns to action on Friday, Jan. 24, at home for the Jayhawk Invittional. The meet is expected to go from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. The meet features lower-level programs, but is a great opportunity to scout out some up and coming talent in addition to seeing the Jayhawks' last home meet of the indoor season.
Teams competing include Allen County CC, Barton County CC, Benedictine, Butler County CC, Coffeyville CC, Hutch CC, Missouri
Southern University, Pittsburg State University, Texas Southern University, University of Missouri-Kansas City and William Jewell. Runners from the two-year programs, such as Allen County CC or Hutch CC will use the meet as a chance to impress coaches at larger programs such as Kansas, for the possibility of transferring after graduating from a two-year program. Currently the Jayhawks have 10 transfers on the men's and women's teams combined, with seven of them coming from junior and community colleges.
A few athletes to be on the lookout for this meet include the usual key players, such as senior Michael Stigler in the hurdles, who is still trying to beat 49 seconds in the 400-meter hurdles. Also on the men's side, look for sophomore Daniel Koech, who has bettered himself two straight weeks in the 1,000-meter race. His time of 2:29.10 resulted in him taking fourth place last weekend in Lincoln. Additionally, freshman Caleb Cowling will be looking to build off of his fourth place finish in the long jump last weekend in Lincoln. On the women's side of the meet, as always, be alert when Diamond Dixon and Lindsay
Vollmer are anywhere near an event. Dixon notched two more victories last weekend in Lincoln, while Vollmer had career bests in the shot put and the 60-meter hurdles. Dixon won the 60-meter dash, with three Jayhawks following close behind.
Sydney Conley is also racking up points for the Jayhawks. Last weekend, she captured the long jump with a personal best on day one of the meet, and on the second day, Conley took third in the 60-meter dash. Be on the lookout for senior Natalie Becker as well on the track. Becker is coming off of a dominating performance in the 3,000-meter race, where she led the entire time. Becker won the race by over 30 seconds, and is now the owner of the tenth best time in the NCAA this season. Becker also took off on day two, when she anchored the distance medley relay, which was another Jayhawk victory.
The meet promises to be an exciting one, and a great way to scout out some younger talent that might one day make it up to the larger programs and cause some waves. So come cheer on the competing teams as Kansas hosts their last meet of the indoor season.
— Edited by Brook Barnes
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Jayhawks gear up for last home meet of the season
SWIMMING AND DIVING
AMIE JUST
sports@kansan.com
"The team really embraced the work," Kansas swim coach Clark Campbell said. "They were challenged in a number of different ways while we were there and they were pushed to their limits. There were triumphs and failures."
The Kansas swimming and diving team escaped the midwest weather this winter break by participating in a training camp in Puerto Rico.
Now that they're back from a long stint in the warmer weather, the Jayhawks will host the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) Trojans on Saturday at 10 a.m. in Robinson Natatorium. This is the Jayhawks' last home meet of the season.
UALR will bring competition for Kansas because of the several talented athletes the Trojans have on their team. Trojan freestyle senior Kara Raney and sophomore Valeriya Teplova have both swam sub-
25 second 50-yard freestyles. The Jayhawks have six athletes who have accomplished that feat this season: senior Morgan Sharp, freshman Lea Wissocq, sophomore Haley Molden, freshman Pia Pavlic, freshman Leah Pfitzer and senior Sofiia Filatova.
"Kara [Raney] has set the standard for our sprint program," UALR coach Amy Burgess said.
Raney holds the school record for both the 100-yard backstroke and the 50-yard freestyle. UALR will bring another record holder, Holly Myers, to the meet. Myers, a senior backstroke and freestyle swimmer, holds the school records in backstroke events, middle distance freestyle events and relays.
In the 100- and 200-breaststroke events, Jayhawks sophomore Bryce Hinde and senior Alison Lusk could face freshman Erin Trumbach, the Trojans' leading breaststroker. Trumbach has put up comparable times to
both Hinde and Lusk in each of the events.
For diving, UALR brings lone diver sophomore Megan Scott. Scott excels at both the one-meter and three-meter diving events. The Jayhawks leading divers, sophomore Meredith Brownell and senior Alyssa Golden, will face steep competition with Scott coming to town. Scott's best performance in the one-meter dive is very close to Golden's best performance. Scott's premiere effort in the three-meter dive bests what both Golden and Brownell have put up over the season.
Both Kansas and UALR have two more duals or triangular meets after Saturday before the conference championships are underway. As the regular season starts to come to a close, swimmers and divers have very few things on their minds: to do their best, to surpass their personal records and to leave everything in the pool.
Edited by Katie Gilbaugh
OLYMPICS
Congress concerned about American safety in Sochi
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BUDAPEST, Hungary Threats to a string of European Olympic offices are reviving a question that has haunted preparations for the Winter Games next month: Is it safe to go to Sochi?
European Olympic authorities, whose countries have faced terrorist threats and attacks in the past, largely shrugged off the new menacing messages as a hoax, a marginal phenomenon that security experts say is common ahead of big events.
Some members of the U.S. Congress aren't so sure. They say Russia isn't doing enough to assure that athletes will be protected at the Feb. 7-23 games, happening not far from an Islamic insurgency that Russia's huge security apparatus has struggled for two decades to quell.
Russia may run greater risks in towns outside the tightly controlled Olympic zone. Suicide bombs last month a few hundred kilometers (miles) away have increased concerns, and an Islamic warlord has urged his followers to attack the Sochi Olympics, Russian President Vladimir Putin's pet project.
The threats reported Wednesday appeared to be more anodyne.
They were first revealed by Hungarian sports officials, who announced they had received an email in Russian and English threatening Hungarian athletes with terrorist attacks.
The International Olympic Committee insisted it takes credible threats seriously, but "in this case it seems like the email sent to the Hungarian Olympic Committee contains
no threat and appears to be a random message from a member of the public"
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said he remains confident in Russia's Olympic organizers.
Talking to reporters in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, he said: "Security is always a matter of concern, not only in the Olympic Games but at every big event, whether it's sport or any other. That is unfortunately the world we are living in.
"But we are very confident and we know the Russian authorities together with their many partners internationally are doing everything to organize the games in a safe and secure way."
"Securtiy is always a matter of concern, not only in the Olympic Games but at every big event."
THOMAS BACH
International Olympic Committee pres.
The Hungarian Olympic Committee said it had received a message from the organizers of the Sochi Games saying: "Threat described in the email sent to your address is not real."
It turned out that Olympic committees from several other European countries, including Britain, Germany, Italy and Austria, had received similar messages but hadn't publicly reported them.
Wolfgang Eichler, spokesman for the Austrian National Olympic Committee, said the email was a hoax that officials had seen before.
"It's a fake mail from a sender in Israel who has been active with various threats for a few years," Eichler told Austrian news agency APA. "It's been checked out because it also arrived two years ago."
Germany's national Olympic association, the DOSB, also said it had received "several times the same mail with unspecific, general warnings" and it had sent it onto security officials.
"We are not aware of any threats that have been deemed as credible being directed toward our delegation," British Olympic Association spokesman Darryl Seibel told the AP. "Organizations such as ours receive email correspondence all the time — some of which seem to lack in credibility."
A spokeswoman for Switzerland's Olympic committee said similar threats were common so close to the Winter Games and athletes and officials would base their travel plans instead on the assessment of security officials — not on threats.
Across the Atlantic, some are viewing the Sochi Games with more trepidation. Members of Congress expressed serious concerns Sunday about the safety of Americans at next month's Olympics in Russia and said Moscow needs to cooperate more.
While FBI Director James Comey said earlier in January that the Russian government "understands the threat and is devoting the resources to address it," the U.S. has offered air and naval support to the Russian government as it conducts security preparations for the Olympics.