This year’s para athletics national championships were unusually weighty. Held over the weekend at Mt. San Antonio College in southern California, the event was both a qualifier for the World Championships in May and a sneak preview of the US Paralympic Trials in July. The calendar isn’t usually this jam-packed with big meets, but international parasports agencies are still untangling the knots that the COVID pandemic tied into the schedule.
Long story short, the Nationals were the first act in what promises to be an epic summer. No Paralympic roster spots were clinched, and plenty of drama remains between now and the Paris Games. But the plot has started to thicken. Some intriguing storylines have begun to emerge, and we’ll get to those in a second.
But first: The weekend did determine the 30 Americans who’ll travel to Kobe, Japan, in two months for the Para Athletics World Championships. Team USA typically enters a much larger contingent in the Worlds, but for reasons that are too complex to explain here, the US has only 30 roster slots available. Hard decisions had to be made, and a number of high-level competitors (including some medal contenders) won’t be able to participate. But the Worlds roster has no bearing on the Paralympic team. Those who didn’t make the cut are still fully eligible to get to Paris. The full Worlds roster was announced Monday, and you can check it out at US Para Track and Field’s website.
The full results of this weekend’s Nationals are available at Track Scoreboard. Here are the outcomes that most intrigued us in the amputee classifications.
WOODHALL BACK IN THE HUNT. A blade malfunction cost Hunter Woodhall (T62) his best chance at a medal during last summer’s Worlds, but his times this weekend showed he’s a serious 2024 Paralympic podium threat. Woodhall completed the 100 meter race in 11.00 seconds to set a new Americas regional record, shaving .04 seconds off his previous standard (set in the 2021 Trials). But the real eye-opener was his 48.04 time in the 400m race. That was more than half a second faster than his bronze-medal-winning mark at the Tokyo Paralympics and nearly a full second faster than the bronze-medal time at last summer’s Worlds. Woodhall is on the roster for the 2024 Worlds, where he’ll try for his fifth career medal—and he appears to be healthy, focused, and poised to make some noise in Paris.
WON’T TAKE NOELLE FOR AN ANSWER. Noelle Lambert (T63) broke two Americas records over the weekend, surpassing her own marks in both the long jump and the 100 meters. Yet despite that career-best performance, she now only holds one of those records, because Lindi Marcusen ran the 100 in a stunning 15.22 seconds to edge Lambert by .03 ticks and establish herself as the new regional recordholder. Both runners demolished the old mark by more than 3/4 of a second, posting times that would give either (or both) an outside shot at the podium in Paris. In the long jump, Lambert outdueled Marcusen by half a meter, with a distance (4.75m) that would have barely missed the podium last summer at Worlds. Because of Team USA’s roster constraints, neither will compete at the ’24 Worlds in May. But they’ll both be firmly in the mix at July’s Paralympic Trials.
LOCCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN. In his first major international meet at last summer’s Worlds, Derek Loccident (T64) outdueled US teammates Trenten Merrill and Jarryd Wallace to take silver in the long jump. Now he’s making noise in the high jump, too. Competing for the first time in his new discipline, Loccident cleared the bar at 1.92 meters, which would have placed 4th in both the 2020 Paralympics and the 2023 Worlds. We won’t be shocked if he wins a medal at Worlds (he’s on the roster) and/or in Paris, and the Americas regional record of 2.11 meters, set 40 years ago by Jeff Skiba, is not out of reach. Oh BTW, Loccident also made his career debut in the javelin this weekend and flung it 47-plus meters; by LA 2028 he’ll probably be pressuring the podium in that event, too.
EZRA FRECH, ALL GREWE UP. Less than three years ago in Tokyo, Sam Grewe won a dramatic Paralympic gold medal in the T63 high jump with a record-setting 1.88 meter leap, while his teenage protege, Ezra Frech, cheered him on after finishing fifth at 1.80 meters. Last Friday the teammates and friends reunited for the first time since Tokyo, and the result was an almost perfect flip-flop: Frech took the title at 1.89 meters, while Grewe cleared the bar at 1.80. During the intervening time, Grewe has had his nose in medical school books while Frech (still a teenager!) has established himself as the classification’s new boss. Last summer he soared past Grewe’s old mark to set a new world record and take gold at last summer’s World Championships. In addition to besting his mentor this weekend, Frech set an Americas record in the long jump with a distance (6.94 meters) that positions him to contend for a second medal in Paris. Both Grewe and Frech made the ’24 Worlds roster, giving Team USA a shot to double up on the T63 high-jump podium.
BEST IN SHOW. We’d never heard of Korban Best (T47) before this weekend. We’ve scoured the results from 2023’s competition calendar and can’t find his name anywhere. But he opened our eyes on Saturday with an 11.02-second time in the 100 meters. That would have been good for 6th place at last year’s Worlds and 5th in the Tokyo Paralympics. And it wasn’t even Best’s fastest time of the season; at a collegiate meet (nondisabled) last month, he posted a 10.90 mark, just .05 seconds shy of the bronze-medal time at last year’s Worlds. On the strength of this weekend’s performance, Best was included on the US Worlds team and will make his international debut in two months on a very big stage.