On the final day of the 69th annual Florida Relays, the relay events took center stage.
While there were a handful of field events, every running event on Saturday for the entire field was a relay. The Gators won one of them.
Florida’s lone victory of the day came by way of the women’s 1600m sprint medley relay squad. A strong first three legs of the relay from Destinee Gause, Ebony Eutsey and Lanie Whittaker helped put Cory McGee in a comfortable position for her 800m anchor leg. By finishing with a time of 3:43.62, this squad is now the fastest in the NCAA this year as well as second all-time at UF.
“I got the baton in such a great position,” McGee said. “It was just a really fun race. It was a great race to start off the season.”
Three hours later, McGee ran another 800m, this time in the women’s 4x800m relay.
After a very strong second leg by Agata Strausa, the Gators looked to be sitting pretty. In the third leg, Tennessee’s Alexis Panisse started gaining ground on Florida’s Shelby Hayes.
McGee had a relatively comfortable lead for the majority of her anchor leg. However, in the last 100m, Panisse closed the gap and edged out McGee to seal a victory for the Volunteers -- setting a meet record time of 8:28.81.
“I knew, coming into today, I was going to do two 800s,” McGee said. “It’s a tough race. It’s unpredictable. Coming back and doing the 4x8 a little while later was tough because you’re tired.”
“In front of the home crowd, you obviously want to win. It was hard in the last 100 meters watching the Tennessee girl take over. At the same time, I can’t be disappointed. It was a long weekend and I ran hard.”
The men’s 4x800m was just as dramatic. Unfortunately for the home fans, it was at the expense of Florida’s Sean Obinwa.
In the anchor leg, Obinwa opened up a significant lead over Georgia Tech’s Zack Fanelty, who was running in second.
But in the last 100 meters, Fanelty drew closer and passed Obinwa, who finished in second by a margin of .04 seconds.
“I waited until 300 (meters) left to get around the leader,” Obinwa said. “That’s when the kid from Georgia Tech pulled up also. With 250 to go, I thought I could take him. So I took off and tried to hold on as hard as I could.”
“Closing in, I didn’t know where he was at but I could feel somebody next to me. I looked to my left and saw all my teammates … I tried to finish, and he out-leaned me at the line.”
Although current Gators only won one event on Saturday, former Gators won events. In the men’s 4x100m relays, Gainesville Elite, a post-collegiate squad that includes Tony McQuay, won the event. Former Gator two-sport athlete Jeff Demps also competed in the same heat for Star Athletics, another post-collegiate squad.
To close out the Florida Relays, the men’s and women’s 4x400m relay squads competed against tough competition. Florida’s men and women finished as runners-ups in their respective fields to post-collegiate squads featuring a host of Olympians. Florida’s women’s squad is now the fastest in the NCAA by posting a time of 3:27.43, breaking a 19-year-old school record in the 4x4 in the process.
“It was an unbelievable weekend,” coach Mike Holloway said. “For our athletes to be able (to perform well) while we’re trying to run the competition -- we can’t really coach them up close like we want to -- I thought it was a phenomenal weekend.”
Lanie Whittaker runs at the Tom Jones Classic on April 21, 2012. Whittaker helped the Gators take first in the sprint medley relay at the Florida Relays on Saturday.
