Foster Fires at NCAA Finals
11 Jun 2009
Foster Fires at NCAA Finals
When he updated his facebook status just a few hours ago, it read “Ryan Foster has packed his victories in his knapsack, put on the white singlet and developed a plan. Time to go make Mum and Dad proud!”
And that he did. At the NCAA Championships in this morning (AEST), Foster won his heat of the 800m in 1min 47.57 sec. That time leapt him to number two on the Tasmanian all time list, behind world junior bronze medallist Brendan Hanigan.
The 20 year old Penn State scholarship holder passed through the halfway mark in 51.85sec, sitting in second place and after finding himself back in the field with 200m remaining, fought on strong to win the heat and have progress to the semi finals as the fastest qualifier from the four heats.
Having moved to the USA almost 12 months ago to take up the scholarship in Pennsylvania, Foster has continued to reach new heights, running personal bests for 800, 1000 and the mile.
The 2009 NCAA championships are being held at John McDonnell Field on the University of Arkansas campus at Fayetteville. With the strict qualification procedures, simply making it to the start line has required multiple runs at local, regional and state events, to bring only the top collegiate athletes from across the USA to the NCAA finals. The competition is so strong, it would be ranked second behind the World University Games in terms of quality of competition for college/university athletes around the world. Foster is one of only eight Australian’s to qualify for the NCAA finals.
The men’s 800m semi finals are on tomorrow morning (AEST).