Many of the world's best track and field athletes converged upon Wallace Wade Stadium for the Duke Invitational this weekend, and several meet records were broken.
The highlight of the two-day meet came on Saturday afternoon when Antonio Pettigrew of the Reebok Racing Club shattered the Duke Invitational mark in the 200-meter dash with his 20.38 finish. Pettigrew's performance was the fastest in the event in the world this year.
"Performances like this are great because they focus the eyes of the track world on the Duke Invitation which really adds to the event," Duke assistant men's track coach Norm Ogilvie said.
Allen Johnson, who placed second in the 200 meters in 20.77, was the top male athlete at the meet, running well in all five of his races on Saturday.
Johnson also dominated an extremely fast field in the 110-meter hurdles with his 13.49 showing in the finals. The performance would have been the fastest in the world this year -- and a meet record -- had it not been wind-aided.
Johnson also anchored the winning 4x100-meter relay team, Team World, to its 40.56 finish.
Pittsburgh's Najuma Fletcher walked away with three watches -- the prize given to the first-place finisher in each event -- after winning the long jump, the high jump and the triple jump.
Kim Blair, a Pitt teammate of Fletcher, set another meet record with her 59.46 run in the 400-meter hurdles.
On Friday, Jerry Lawson broke the Duke Invitational mark with his 14:10.41 performance in the 5000 meters. Georg Diettrich of Connecticut, who was the top collegiate finisher in the race, also ran well, finishing in 14:12.60.
Two more women's meet records fell on Saturday afternoon when North Carolina's Ingrid Hantho won the discus with her 163-9 throw and Debbie Duplay ran 2:04.63 in the 800 meters.
Of local interest, Kate O'Hern, who is a student at Duke's Fuqua School of Business, placed second in the 1,500-meter run in 4:27.72. O'Hern was running for the Westchester Track Club.
Some of the best drama of the weekend came in the men's and women's 4x400-meter relays, which were the final two events of the meet on Saturday evening.
In the women's race, the Westchester Track Club had what appeared to be a commanding lead over George Mason going into the anchor leg of the race. However, Ogilvie, the meet's announcer, was quick to proclaim that the race was not over. He was right.
Less than half a lap later, GMU had taken the lead and the Patriots went on to win the race by over four seconds in a meet-record time of 3:40.83.
The team from St. Augustine's won the men's 4x400 relay. The only question at the end of the race was whether the team would break the Duke Invitational record for the event. It did, coming in with a time of 3:08.91 and providing the meet with an exciting finale.
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