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Athletes of the Week: Men's 4x400 Relay TeamBy Shannon Duff In last weekend's Yale-Bucknell-Cornell track meet, the fate of the track team came to rest on the shoulders of the men's 4x400 relay team. While a team victory over Cornell had already been assured, the Bulldogs needed a win from the 4x400 team of Jason Rife, SM '01, Jac Gould, CC '00, Zack Boise, TD '01, and Dennis Manning, TC '98, to defeat Bucknell. "Coach [Steve Bartold] just laid it out for us--he told us that we had to win the relay to win the meet," Boise said.
With all three teams lining the edges of the track cheering their relay squads, the Eli team rose to the occasion. Rife showed tremendous composure in his lead-off leg before passing the baton to Gould, who sped through his quarter of the relay. Boise's swift third leg put the final stretch in the trustworthy hands of Yale's ace anchor Manning. Manning has anchored the 4x400 for the Blue for four years, and his experience took center stage. The veteran blazed through the first 300 meters, putting himself in prime position to smoke the competition on the final straightaway, where he cemented the victory. Still running in the third position, Manning swung to an outside lane, where he blew past the opposing runners in the final l00 meters and clinched the victory for the Blue. This weekend the team will face Harvard and Princeton at the Big Three Championship in Cambridge. Gould assessed the upcoming meet: "It's a big test this weekend. It will be a good indication of what we can do. Right now, all we know is that we can run faster."
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