This Just In: Lions Compete At Championships, Dogs Compete At Husky Invites

The 2020 Indoor National Champions have been crowned, highlighted by Cristian Coleman’s 60m torching, Shelby Houlihan adding 2 more national titles to her legacy, and Paul Chelimo continuing his feud with Lopez Lomong by adding another US title to his legacy.

Overall the weekend was a fine showing for USATF with what was accomplished inside the Albuquerque Convention Center but the bigger story should be the caliber of US athletes competing elsewhere. Maybe it isn’t too surprising in a year where the World Indoor Championships have already been postponed but it is still a meaningful national championship and yet, a good portion of athletes decided to forgo the competition.

This isn’t a question of dodging competition either, in the women’s 800m athletes like Hoka NJNY’s Ce’Aira Brown would have had an excellent chance at a podium spot at USATFs but racing at BU was more economical for the New York-based athlete than making the trip to New Mexico.

In fact, the majority of the east coast training groups opted to stay closer to home rather than flying west for a chance at a USA title. For the abundance of East coast athletes, it probably isn’t worth the investment to fly in when you can always drive up the road to Boston.