NEW YORK, January 31, 2012 – Morgan Uceny, Track & Field News’ top-ranked women’s 1500m runner in the world, will headline a stellar field of runners in the 800-meter run at the 105th Millrose Games February 11 at the Armory’s New Balance Track & Field Center.
Uceny will compete against 2011 U.S. Indoor 800m champion Phoebe Wright; World Championships finalist Maggie Vessey of Santa Cruz, Calif.; and 2011 World Youth Champion Ajee Wilson, a New Jersey prep standout.
“I’m excited to get to race at the Armory again,” Uceny said. “I won a conference championship on this track and remember the track being fast and the energy high.”
Running for Cornell University at the 2007 Ivy League Heptagonal Championships at the Armory, Uceny won the 800m championship with a 2:04.88, more than six seconds in front of the rest of the field.
Uceny turned in a stellar 2011 campaign with a USA Outdoors Championship, three Samsung Diamond League victories and the fastest time of the year (4.00.06 in Brussels).
Last season in her Indoor debut, Wright won the U.S. National 800m title in 2.02.27. A former walk-on at the University of Tennessee, she won two NCAA Championships in the 800m and five Southeastern Conference titles (three 800m and a pair of distance medley relays).
The remainder of the women’s 800m field includes: Latavia Thomas, Lea Wallace, Chunyu Wang of China and Aly Goldfarb of Israel.
Arguably the most memorable women’s 800m event at Millrose took place in 1990. That’s when Millrose Games’ legend and New Jersey’s Joetta Clark (now Joetta Clark-Diggs) upset East German and 1988 Olympic medalists Christine Wachtel and Sigrun Wodars before the delight of a sellout crowd at Madison Square Garden.
Clark-Diggs competed in 23 Millrose Games even winning the 800m in her mid-30s in 2000. A four-time Olympian, Clark-Diggs is a member of the National Track & Field Hall of Fame.
