12th IAAF World Championships
August 18, 2009
Olympic Stadium
Berlin, Germany

4-time Olympian and 8-time World Championship Team Member Amy Acuff (Isleton, CA) qualified for Thursday's final in the Women's High Jump by clearing the automatic qualifying mark of 1.95m. Acuff cleared 1.80m/5-10.75, 1.85m/6-0.75 and 1.89m/6-2.25 on her first attempts but needed all three of her attempts to clear 1.92m/6-3.5. She then cleared 1.95m/6-4.75 on her second attempt to automatically advance to her sixth straight World Championship final. Afterwards, Acuff commented, "I'm really excited. I don't take making the finals for granted. Every one is a treasure. I'm really happy to be there, especially in Berlin. I felt like I got up at 6 a.m. I felt like it was early in the morning. I drank my little green tea, but it didn't really kick me up. I think I will feel better in the final. I want to go back (to the hotel), take a nap and get rested and try to have a more fluid run. I'm just going to let myself go and not micromanage everything."

Less than 48 hours after finishing 10th in her first international heptahtlon, Sharon Day (San Luis Obispo, CA) came out fresh and bouncy clearing 1.80m/5-10.75, 1.85m/6-0.75 and 1.89m/6-2.25 on her first attempts. At the next height, however, Day was unable to clear 1.92m/6-3.5 and failed to advance to the next round.

Wednesday's action will see Jake Arnold (Tucson, AZ) start day 1 of the Decathlon. Arnold will compete in the 100m, Long Jump, & Shot Put in the morning session and the High Jump, & 400m in the evening session.

12th IAAF World Championships
August 17, 2009
Olympic Stadium
Berlin, Germany

In only her sixth multi-event competition, 2008 Olympian Sharon Day (San Luis Obispo, CA) proved she will be a permanent fixture in the Heptathlon after finishing in 10th place at the 12th IAAF World Championships. Day started day 1 running 13.90sec in the 100m hurdles and followed with a 1.89m clearance in the High Jump and was in second place after two events with a total score of 2086 points. Despite not warming over the bar due to a serious case of patellar tendinitis caused by the long plane ride over to Germany, Day was excited to clear 1.89m. She put the Shot 13.42m to set a new event personal best and ran the 200m in 25.15sec for a 4 event total of 3714 points and finish day 1 in 8th place. Day 2 began with the Long Jump and Day only managed to leap 5.69m to fall into 11th place. She threw a new personal best 44.14m in the Javelin and ran the 800m in 2:13.84, the last of seven events, for a total score of 6126 points and a top 10 finish. "I'm very happy about my performance," Day commented after the grueling 800m. "It's my first major competition at the international scale and I couldn't be happier with 10th place in the world right now. It was a really good experience to compete at a world level. I'm going to put this in my pocket and keep training."

Two years ago at the 11th IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan, US Champion and 2008 Olympian Diana Pickler (Sachse, TX) finished her first international heptathlon in 25th place. She improved on that performance with an 11th place finish with a total score of 6086 points. A blistering start in the 100m hurdles with a finishing time of 13.50sec put Pickler in fourth place after the first event but below average marks in the High Jump (1.77m), Shot Put (12.40m) and 200m (24.75sec) resulted in many lost points and she finished day 1 in 12th place with a total score of 3589 points. Day 2 started off better for Pickler with a season best mark in the Long jump (6.24m) and she followed it up by throwing the Javelin 41.13m. Pickler finished the last of seven events by running a new personal best in the 800m crossing the finish line in 2:15.60. "I came in so prepared. I went in here faster and stronger than I've ever been, and I felt mentally prepared. It just didn't start out this way," Pickler commented after the 800m. "The first day was a struggle, and it was so frustrating, because I knew that I did everything to prepare right for this meet. It was hard to go out there and be disappointed with the way things went in day 1. I was nowhere close to where I should have been." She added "Today, I just tried to block everything out. I was really happy with setting a PR in the 800 after what I went through in the competition. Setting a PR in the 800 is going to make me mentally stronger."

In the qualifying round in the Women's Javelin, Kara Patterson (West Lafayette, IN) threw 52.91m and did not advance to Tuesday's final.

Athlete's seeing action on Tuesday will be 2008 Olympians Amy Acuff and Sharon Day competing in the qualifying rounds of the Women's High Jump.