Freshman Emmanuel Bor Qualifies for NCAA Championship Finals
3/9/2007 12:00:00 AM
Fayetteville, Ark. ?? University of Alabama freshman Emmanuel Bor competed at his first NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships today in Fayetteville Arkansas in the mile run preliminaries. His time today was good enough to earn him a spot in the finals tomorrow.
“Anytime you can bring a freshman into this environment and have them succeed is a wonderful accomplishment,” head coach Harvey Glance said. “Bor was the last guy to make it into this meet and now he has a great chance to be the 180th All-American I have coached.”
In what was a very fast race Bor turned in a time of 4:02.16 which was good for a fifth place finish in his heat. More importantly his time was the fifth fastest overall which qualifies him for the finals in the mile tomorrow evening.
“I have never ran on a track this small (200m banked), which caused me a few problems early but I was able to adjust to the pack,” Bor said. “Hopefully tomorrow I can come out here and earn All-American and score points for Alabama.”
Bor’s time today was just forty-two hundredths of a second off his personal best time of 4:01.74, which won him the Southeastern Conference Championships.
The freshman from Eldoret, Kenya has been nothing short of spectacular since arriving at the Capstone. In his first indoor season he qualified for the NCAA Championship, won an SEC championship in the mile run, earned All-Sec with a second place finish in the 3,000m, and was the anchor leg on the distance relay team that took home third place at the SEC Championships. Bor also finished second in the SEC individual points competition with 19.5 points.
Though his first seven months as a member of the Crimson Tide, Bor has been a SEC Champion, three time All-SEC , All-South Region XC, two time SEC male athlete of the week, and a two time NCAA Championship qualifier.
The mile run finals will take place tomorrow at 6:25 p.m.
-UA-
