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June 20, 2008

COLUMBUS, Ohio - University of Louisville freshman D'Ana McCarty earned a runner-up finish in Friday's hammer throw at the 2008 USA Junior Outdoor Championships to earn a spot on Team USA for the IAAF World Junior Championships next month in Poland, while teammate Chinwe Okoro narrowly missed on a Team USA bid with a third-place finish in the discus.

A native of Indianapolis, Ind., McCarty had a personal best throw of 182-07 (55.65m) to finish second in the field of 17 of the nation's top 19-and-under athletes at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium. She will join Western Michigan's Irene Cooper, who won Friday's event, in competing for Team USA on July 8-13 in the hammer throw at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The top two finishers in each event at the USA Junior Championships earn automatic spots on Team USA for the World Junior Championships.

"It's very exciting and I'm looking forward to competing at the World Junior Championships," said McCarty. "I really thought I would throw a little farther, but I finished where I expected."

McCarty becomes the first Cardinal to advance to the IAAF World Junior Championships since the trio of Tone Belt, Andre Black and Cory Thorne represented Team USA in 2006. Belt went on to become the program's first World Championships medalist winning the silver medal in the long jump.

In the discus throw, Okoro, a native of Russell, Ky., had a personal best throw of 164-08 (50.20m) to match Erin Pendleton for the second-best throw on Friday. However, the tiebreaker for the event is a comparison of the athletes' second best throws and Pendleton's second best throw of 163-06 (49.84m) was better than Okoro's second best mark of 162-00 (49.39m), which clinched the second-place finish and the final berth on Team USA in the discus for Pendleton.

Following the USA Junior Championships, the Cards will have at least three athletes competing for spots on Team USA for the 2008 Summer Olympics as jumpers Tone Belt and Andre Black and thrower Jere' Summers compete at the US Olympic Team Trials on June 27-July 6 in Eugene, Ore., while freshman Michael Eaton has earned the "B" qualifying standard in the 10,000m run.

The Cards will also have two international-born athletes pursuing the Olympic dream this summer, including men's jumper Rudon Bastian (Bahamas) on June 27 and women's distance runner Tarah McKay (Canada) on July 3-4.

Louisville head coach Ron Mann will serve as the men's middle distance coach for Team USA at the 2008 Beijing Olympics on Aug. 8-24. Along with his duties in Beijing, he'll also be in Eugene for the US Olympic Team Trials.