The men's track team will be well-represented at the Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association of America (IC4A) meet that will be held this weekend in Fairfax, Va. The meet, considered just a notch below the NCAA championships, brings together the top track stars on the East Coast, ranging as far west as Notre Dame and as far south as Duke.
Adding more prestige to the meet, participants had to qualify with certain levels of performance during the season in order to receive an invitation to the meet.
The main star for the Blue Devils this weekend should be junior Miles Hall in the 1,500-meter race. Hall, whose time of 3:51.11 at the Atlantic Coast Conference championships qualified him for the event, will face some of the toughest competition in Farifax this weekend.
"The 1,500-meters is the most competitive event of the meet, " assistant coach Norm Ogilvie said. "The field will include four or five guys who have your under four-minute [mile]."
The top runners in the event are mainly from Big East schools such as Providence, Georgetown and Villanova.
Ogilvie hopes that by next season, Hall will be able to add his name to the list of sub-four-minute milers.
"He has all the tools to think about four minutes before he leaves [Duke]," Ogilvie said. "We think that he can run a 4:05 this next weekend."
The other participant in the meet is Gil Winters at the javelin. Winters threw a personal best of 190 feet, 2 inches to qualify for the meet.
"If [Winters] throws 190 feet, he'll have a shot at scoring," Ogilvie said. "He certainly has the potential to do something."
However, a late-season shoulder injury may prevent Winters from throwing as far as possible.
Ogilvie believes that this meet will give Duke a head start on next season, when it hopes to send competitors to the NCAAs.
"We're real close at breaking through to the next level," Ogilvie said.
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