USA Track & Field (USATF) is the national governing body for track and field, long-distance running including cross country and mountain-ultra-trail running and race walking in the United States.  The USATF Niagara Association territory is defined as the State of New York west of and including the counties of Oswego, Onondaga, Cortland and Broome. This includes the metropolitan areas of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Jamestown, Ithaca, and Binghamton.  USATF encompasses the world's oldest organized sports, the most-watched events of Olympic broadcasts, the #1 high school and junior high school participatory sport and more than 30 million adult runners in the United States.

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Niagara Looking for your stories
If you know of someone in the Association turning in high level performances in Junior Olympics, High school State and National competitions, open running and Track and Field, or Masters competitions, email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .  We can't track everything that's going on in the Association, so if you let us know what's going on with a link to results and/or a short description mentioning why the performance was notable, we'll do our best getting stories up on the site in the appropriate location.

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Spratling sets NCAA 500m Record at Big East Championships

February 18th - New York, NY - Brycen Spratling, (pictured to the left) a Webster Schroeder HS alum, now competing as a sophomore for Univ. of Pittsburgh, set a new NCAA All-Time record for the 500m Run at the Big East Championships on Sunday, February 19th at the Armory track in New York City. His winning time of 1:00.63 bested the old collegiate record of 1:00.82 set by Lesiba Masheto of Univ. of Illinois in 2008. Brycen also won the 200m Dash in 21.16, just missing the meet record by 0.01 seconds. Congratulations Brycen Spratling and good luck in the 400m at the USATF Indoor Championships in Albuquerque, NM this weekend. ...more

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Sub 4 Milers and More!!!

February 11th - Alex Hatz of Manlius, NY (pictured to the left photo by Brian Mason) now running for the Wisconsin Badgers won the mens mile at the Tyson Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark with a time 3:58.68 breaking the Wisconsin Badgers school record and becoming the fourth badger to break 4minutes in the mile.  Erik Van Ingen of SUNY Binghamton finished 5th place at the historic Millrose Games Wanamaker Mile running a 3:56.37.  Matthew Centrowitz won the mile with a time of 3:53.92.  Other notable indoor track performances from the weekend were at the BU Valentine Invite from Boston, MA.  Nicholas Guarino of Bergen, NY ran a 4:02.86 in the mile.  Former Syracuse Unversity grad Kyle Heath now running for the Army finished 2nd in the Mens 3000 meter race running a 8:06.63 along with Brad Miller of Syracuse, NY finishing 4th with a time of 8:08.63.  Cornells Matt Mcullough and Brett Kelly finished 6th and 7th in the 5000meter run with times of 14:25.83 and 14:27.08.  SUNY Geneseo's Eddie Navara finished 8th in the 5000meter run with a time of 14:27.21 and Lee Berube finished 11th with a time of 14:32.16. 

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USA Masters Half Marathon Championships

February 5th - Kevin Collins of Liverpool, NY finished third overall with a time of 1:10:13 at the Melbourne & Beaches Music Half Marathon which hosted the 2012 USA Masters Half Marathon Championships.  The overall mens winner was Mbarak Hussein of Albuquerque, NM with a time of 1:09:37.  The womens champion was Sonya Friend-Uhl of Brentwood, TN with a time of 1:10:53.  Kristin White of Manlius, NY was 7th with a time of 1:28:51. ...more  

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Jenn Suhr sets American Record at Reggie Lewis Center and named USATF Athlete of the week
02/05/2012 - Boston, MA
Character of a Champion

Jenn Suhr showed what it takes to be a Champion this weekend at the New Balance Grand Prix in Boston. A week ago, Jenn was unable to clear her opening height in what was sure to have been a disappointing way to start the season off. Champions don’t let that affect them very long. They get back to work, figure out what went wrong, fix it, and move on. Saturday, Jenn returned to Boston and the Reggie Lewis Arena where she has found plenty of success over the years. With a clearance at her opening height this weekend, the monkey was off her back. The second height was not as easy bringing a change of poles and three attempts to clear the bar. ...more
photo courtesy of www.usatf.org

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USATF Niagara LDR Championships 

USATF Niagara is looking for 3 races to host the 2012 LDR USATF Niagara Championships.  If you are a race director or know of a race that would be interested in hosting a championship please have the race director or someone affiliated with the race fill out the bid form and return it to Eric Boyce by 3/1/2012.  USATF Niagara is looking for well organized, high quality, competitive races that will allow athletes to perform at the highest levels and prepare for competing at the USATF Niagara Championships.  Whenever possible, these races will be used to help determine which athletes will be supported by USATF Niagara to attend the National Championships should resources available.  USATF Niagara Bid Form can be found here  usatf_niagara_bid_document. More information can be found on the LDR Page .