USA Track & Field – News – Nike Prefontaine Classic Quotes – Day One

Elite Athlete Quotes
Maggie Vessey, USATF High Performance Women’s 800m winner

“I feel like this was a really solid performance. My fitness level is really, really good right now. It was just a matter of getting in the right race and being able to have that push to the finish. I’m excited about what I did, so I think it was a good performance for the night.”

Joe Kovacs, Men’s Shot Put winner

“Felt good, always good to put together a big series and almost all of them were over 70. That’s the goal, always raising the minimum, especially when I come back here at the end of the month, June 28th. I want to put on the show again. Always nice having the crowd here and it’s always been nice to perform in front of them.”

“I have the trust in my coach, Art Venegas. He’s the reason I’m doing so well right now. I started off big, went back in weight room and that’s just part of the game. You have to pick your battles and the bigger battles are going to be USAs and then the World Championships.”

“The first goal is to beat the US guys ‘cause that’s going to be the tough one, USAs. The next goal to look forward to is Worlds. It’s always good to beat whomever is on top right now.”

Tianna Bartoletta, Women’s Long Jump winner

“The field today demanded superior performances and all the ladies have been jumping well this year. So when I woke up this morning, my husband, my coach and I, we all just kept affirming that I was ready to jump seven meters-plus. That was the only thing that I allowed to loop in my head today that I was going to jump that far. The competition demanded it and I’m happy I was able to execute under that kind of pressure, in that field, in front of these fans today.

“I felt (the series of jumps) was very inconsistent. I was having a lot of trouble jumping off the board. I didn’t do myself any favors jumping big jumps from behind the board. That’s something we’ll adjust going into Nationa

“I moved my approach in closer [on best jump] and I got all the board; well, most of the board. I left 10 centimeters on the board.”

Galen Rupp, third place, men’s 5,000 meters

“It was good. I’m really happy with the way it went. It was a good season opener. I couldn’t be more happy with the way it started, you know, it’s May, so I know what I need to do. It gave me some good information going forward to the end of the summer.”
 
“I think that everybody was probably feeling pretty good [with 700m to go], it was a huge pack. The race was pretty tactical. I knew I had to try to make it a longer drive and a lot of those guys in there have a great kick at the end, so I didn’t want to leave it with 200, 300 meters to go.  I wanted to make sure that whenever I went that it was decisive.  I did my best and did what I thought I needed to do to win. So I’ll take it going forward and make the right adjustments in training and go from there.”

“I really wish I would have been able to race a couple of weeks ago. It’s just bad luck with the weather and there’s nothing you can do about that. This was a great season opener for me and I just really wanted to see where I stacked up against these guys. It’s been awhile since I’ve raced, so I was really happy with the way it went.”

“I think [I’ll take away] continuing to get better at the finish; obviously the big takeaway [is] that it ended up being tactical. I was really happy that it ended up being tactical. I know my strength is great right now and this is good practice for the big meets coming up which are probably going to be tactical, too. I’m really pleased with the way it turned out.

I know where I’m at now. It’s been so long it feels like since I’ve raced, I really didn’t have an indoor season. It was just good to be back out there.”

USA Track & Field – News –