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What to watch for at the TrackTown Summer Series finale in NYC

By Citius Mag Staff

July 5, 2017

The 2017 Tracktown Summer Series finale takes place on Thursday night at Randall’s Island in New York City. The New York City Empire and San Francisco Surge lead the team scores going into the final meet with 15 points each. Philadelphia and Portland are not too far behind with 12 points apiece.

San Francisco was last year’s champion.

For those not too familiar with the scoring system, 9-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 points will be awarded for individual events; 18-14-12-10 for combined events and the mixed 4×4 and 9-7-6-5 for the field events.

How to watch the meet

Time: Meet starts at 8 p.m. but will be shown on a one-hour delay on ESPN. Broadcast starts at 9 and runs till 11 p.m.

TV: ESPN

Live Stream: You can watch online with WatchESPN

Schedule and Results: Can be found here

Here are some of the top distance races to watch tomorrow:

The 5K road race is super small

The men’s and women’s race will have a total of eight runners. The men’s side features 2017 world championship steeplechase qualifier Stankley Kebenei (Portland). The women’s side could have a good showdown between Kellyn Taylor (Philadelphia) and Kim Conley (New York). Ashley Higginson (New York) looks to put on a show for the home crowd.

Robby Andrews’ standard chase continues

Andrews (San Francisco) is the U.S. champion but still needs to run the standard of 3:36.00 in order to secure his spot for the world championships. He dropped out of the 1,500 race in Portland when he knew that he wasn’t going to hit the standard in his last lap. Craig Engels (Philadelphia), who finished fourth in Sacramento, is also in the hunt for the standard – in case that Andrews doesn’t hit it. Ben Blankenship (Philadelphia) won the Portland race in a photo finish with Kyle Merber (Portland).

Hannah Fields’ breakout continues

Hannah Fields (San Francisco) has quietly been one of the most impressive runners of the year. She focused on the 800 at USAs and reached the semifinal but had one heck of a race at the Portland meet to drop her PR from 4:11 to 4:05.30. She also ran 2:00.53 at the Portland Track Festival. We’ll see if she can have another breakthrough but this time outside of the Rose City. she’ll have have quite the competition on her hands with Emma Coburn (New York City) dropping down for a 1,500. Alexa Efraimson (San Francisco) and Amanda Eccleston (Philadelphia) are also in the field.

Not to be forgotten, fellow Brooks Beast Drew Windle (Portland) has been on a tear. He won the Portland edition of the men’s 800 and will race again in the New York edition.

Make a case for staying close to home

Part of the reason that the TrackTown Summer Series was started was so that athletes don’t have to go out and chase fast times in Europe. It’s a cheaper option to stay closer to home. Well, here’s a chance for Devon Allen (Philadelphia) to prove to someone like Aries Merritt that he didn’t have to go all the way to Hungary to run 13.11 at the Gyulai Memorial Meet. Let’s get a Summer Series mark on the worlds list. Allen has a season’s best of 13.10 from Paris just a few days ago.

Paul Chelimo Show

The Yankees are off on Thursday night so the best athlete in action will not be Aaron Judge but Paul Chelimo (Portland) in the men’s 3,000 meters.

Citius Mag Staff