NSU's
Goldring becomes first HBCU 2004 Div I Track All-American
June 11, 2004
AUSTIN, Texas. — NSU senior Tianna Goldring (Bryantown, Md./La Plata) took
fourth place in the long jump late Thursday night at the NCAA Division I Outdoor
Track & Field
Championships at the University of Texas, earning All-American status thanks
to her personal-best jump.
Tianna Goldring
Goldring jumped 21 feet, 2.75 inches (6.47 meters) on her first attempt. She won her flight and was bested by only three other athletes overall: Georgia’s Hyleas Fountain (21-8.25), Nebraska’s Ineta Radevica (21-6), and Baylor’s April Holliness (21-6).
“It feels great,” Goldring said. “I’ve been waiting for a long time to become an All-American.”
Goldring’s previous best jump was 20-8 at the MEAC Outdoor Championships, a mark that earned her an exemption into the nationals. She finished ninth at the NCAA East Regional two weeks ago. Her jump Thursday also represents a qualifying mark for the Olympic Trials.
“Everything I’ve been working on in practice with coach Marvin (Ricks) and coach (LaVerne) Sweat came together,” Goldring said. “I made sure I wasn’t thinking so hard, because that’s what took me out of regionals. I stayed loose and stopped being nervous.
“Another thing that helped me was on Thursday morning, I read in the newspaper where they projected the top eight or 10 places in each event, and I wasn’t in there. I was thinking, ‘I want to make sure you know who I am.’”
Goldring, the 2004 MEAC indoor and outdoor champion, is the first NSU woman to reach All-American status since Debbie Dunn, who did so by taking sixth in the 400 meters outdoors and second in the 200 meters indoors in 2000.
