Jones, Williams, Manson lead Team USA at Five Nations Match

For Immediate Release
Monday, February 2, 2009
Contact:
Tom Surber
Media Information Manager
(317) 713-4690; Tom.Surber@usatf.org


USATF News & Notes, Volume 9, Number 2
Jones, Williams, Manson lead Team USA at Five Nations Match

Lolo Jones, Angela Williams and Andra Manson each posted impressive victories in their respective events Saturday at the 2009 Five Nations Match at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow, Scotland.


The Five Nations Match features one athlete in each event from the United States, Great Britain, Sweden, Germany and a Commonwealth Select team. It is a unique country vs. country format that features athletes from the different nations battling against each other to earn points towards their teams overall match total.


Jones, who was victorious in the 100m hurdles at the 2008 Olympic Trials and ended the season ranked #1 in the world by Track & Field News, led the U.S. squad with her convincing win in the women's 60m hurdles in 7.95 seconds. Her performance equals the world's best so far this indoor season posted Friday night at the Millrose Games in New York by Canadian standout and Beijing Olympics bronze medalist Priscilla Lopes-Schliep.

Other U.S. winners included 2008 Olympic team member Angela Williams, who won the women's 60 meters in 7.32 seconds, finishing 0.02 seconds ahead of Bahamian star Chandra Sturrup. In the men's high jump, 2008 Olympian Andra Manson was the victor with a clearance of 2.31 meters/7 feet 7 inches. Great Britain's Samson Oni was the runner-up with a clearance of 2.29m/7-6.

Americans who finished second in Glasgow included Chris Berrian in the men's 200m (21.19), 2004 World Junior 100m champion Ivory Williams in the men's 60 meters (6.61), Olympic Trials sixth-place finisher Jeremy Scott in the men's pole vault (5.45m/17-10.50) and 2008 Olympic finalist Funmi Jimoh in the women's long jump (6.31m/20-8.50).

The Commonwealth Select team finished first in the team competition with 60 points, followed by Great Britain & N.I. (2nd-57 points), Germany (3rd-51 points), Team USA (4th-46 points) and Sweden (5th-37 points).

For more information on the 2009 Five Nations Match in Glasgow, visit: www.iaaf.org

Hall of Famer Glenn Davis dies


Two-time Olympic Games men's 400m hurdles gold medalist and National Track & Field Hall of Famer Glenn Davis died in Barberton, Ohio, January 28 following a long illness. He was 74.

A versatile, multi-talented athlete while at Ohio State University, where he won 26 Big Ten titles and four NCAA national championships, Davis ran the 400m hurdles for the first time in 1956 in winning the AAU national championship, beating established star and 1956 Olympic Games bronze medalist Josh Culbreath.


At the 1956 Olympic Trials, he became the first athlete to break 50 seconds in the 400m hurdles, winning in a world record of 49.5. He capped his year by winning the event at the Melbourne Olympics in an Olympic record of 50.1.


Four years later in Rome, he became the first person to win the event for a second time, running 49.3 to surpass his own Olympic record. He won another gold medal that year as a member of the U.S. 4x400m relay team.


Davis was a four-time AAU champion in the intermediate hurdles. An exceptional 400m-440-yard sprinter, Davis set a world record of 45.7 seconds in the 440-yard dash in 1958. That same year, he lowered his own world record in the 400m hurdles and set a world record of 49.9 in the 400-yard hurdles. During one of the rare times he ran the 200m hurdles, Davis set a world record of 22.5 in 1960.


The 1958 Sullivan Award winner as the top American amateur athlete that year, Davis was inducted into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame in 1974.


Davis, who was coached by fellow Hall of Famer Larry Snyder, played professional football for the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams following his track career. He later became the track coach at Cornell University from 1963 to 1967, before returning to his hometown of Barberton, where he coached and taught until the early 1990s.


Davis is survived by his wife, Delores, three children, two sisters, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

About USA Track & Field

USA Track & Field (USATF) is the National Governing Body for track and field, long-distance running and race walking in the United States. USATF encompasses the world's oldest organized sports, some of the most-watched events of Olympic broadcasts, the #1 high school and junior high school participatory sport and more than 30 million adult runners in the United States.

For more information on USATF, visit www.usatf.org

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