Sork competing at junior championships

Union’s Tanner Sork is competing at the USATF Junior Championships this weekend in Bloomington,
Indiana. He was first in his preliminary heat of the 800 meters on Friday to reach Saturday’s final. It was announced at the meet that Sork is the only high school runner competing against a field of collegiate runners.

Sork’s time of 1 minute, 52.09 seconds seeds him sixth for the final.

The top two finishers on Saturday will qualify to join the USA Juniors Team to compete at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Barcelona in July.

This was posted on ESPN.com’s high school track website ( http://espn.go.com/high-school/track-and-xc/events/usatf-junior-nationals/2012/story/_/id/8050092/2012-usatf-junior-mens-preview ) …

Less than a month ago, it would have been unimaginable to think of Tanner Sork being the country’s #1 800-meter runner, let alone the top prep contender to make Team USA for the World Junior Championships. But then the Union senior lowered his PR from 1:52.26 to a nation-leading 1:48.74 in one fell swoop at the BorderDuel in Portland, beating fellow sub-1:50 talent Marcus Dickson, and his life changed. He backed it up at the Portland Track Festival with a 1:49.10 and another win.

Almost as surprising is the fact that while 11 preps have broken 1:50 this spring, only one of them will be in Bloomington. NBNO has the lion’s share of half-mile talent, while other athletes are doing other events or have shut it down for the season. In fact, of the top 16 entrants in the Junior 800, all under 1:52, Sork is the only high schooler. The top seed is collegian Joe McAsey of U. of Illinois at 1:48.62 and three other collegians are under 1:49, leaving Sork right in the middle of things. If he can show the same finish he’s had the past two meets, he’ll be in excellent shape to go from unknown to Team USA in three weeks.

Here’s a link to a video of Sork’s preliminary heat of the 800 meters: http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=7289&do=videos&video_id=71458

(Thanks to Erik Sork for the links and info.)