At Hayward Field I could have been a commentator

ATHLETICS:TOM HUMPHRIES was sent to the US Olympic trials in Sacramento eight years ago. Sure, he's a great writer, but I'd still like to know what he did to deserve that.

The US Olympic trials has to be the most exciting track and field meeting in the world, and it's just not fair that he has been to cover them and I haven't.

So then the 2008 trials were awarded to Eugene, Oregon, and I remember thinking I have to get the Sports Editor to send me there. Beg, if necessary. Offer to do GAA team news for six months. In the end, I didn't have the cojones to ask and so I've been dreaming all week about what it must be like sitting in the press box of Hayward Field.

As Baron de Coubertin might have said, the important thing about the US trials is not the winning but the finishing in the top three. It doesn't matter if you're the world-record holder; unless you finish in the top three (and have the qualifying standard) you won't go to Beijing. No excuses, no exceptions, and usually no complaints. It's a ruthlessly simple system, and that's what makes it so great.

There are countless tales of world-famous athletes failing to make the US Olympic team. Carl Lewis was sick during the 1992 trials and managed only sixth in the 100 metres. Despite being the reigning Olympic champion and world-record holder, he did not get to run the 100 metres in Barcelona (though he did make the team in the long jump and sprint relay - taking gold in both).

The most embarrassing casualty was the decathlete Dan O'Brien, also in 1992. O'Brien was world champion and had signed a €16-million endorsement deal with Reebok promoting his rivalry with his compatriot Dave Johnson. At the trials, O'Brien was on world record points when he failed to clear a height in the pole vault. He reportedly watched the Olympics from his bed.

They wouldn't be the trials without tribulations. This has been the system since 1972, when, coincidentally, the trials were first staged in Eugene - otherwise known as "Track Town USA".

There are several explanations for Eugene's fanatical track-and-field tradition, and the single most important of them is the runner Steve Prefontaine.

He never broke a world record or won an Olympic medal, yet Prefontaine inspired not one but two Hollywood feature films based entirely on his running career - the 1997 Disney production Prefontaine and the 1998 Warner Brothers production Without Limits. If you include the feature-length documentary Fire on the Track, Prefontaine is probably the most glamorised athlete in track-and-field history.

Even today, 33 years after his death, Prefontaine is by far the most recognised name in US distance running. Ask any high school or college runner from New York to San Francisco to name his idol of the sport and chances are he'll say "Steve Prefontaine" - or even just "Pre".

It's just one measure of the extraordinary affection an ordinarily talented athlete from Coos Bay, Oregon, still inspires. What made Prefontaine so fascinating was the way he ran, what he stood for and, ultimately, the tragic car accident that ended his life in 1975, aged just 24. He is to American running what James Dean is to American cinema.

"Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints," he once said, "I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race. It's style."

In his short career Prefontaine turned Hayward Field into the capital of US track. It's a modest stadium, belonging to the University of Oregon, and since 1919 has been named after the university's founding coach, Bill Hayward. It was during Prefontaine's time, and under an even more celebrated coach, Bill Bowerman, that Hayward Field earned a reputation for its electrified atmosphere and highly knowledgeable fans.

When the 1972 trials were staged there Prefontaine was the headline act. Wearing a pair of Bowerman's custom-built Nikes, decorated for the first time with a "swoosh", Prefontaine did not disappoint. He won the 5,000 metres in a US record 13:22.8, thus earning his ticket to the Munich Olympics.

"I think, if it comes down to a true-run race, then I'm the only one that can win," he said of his Olympic ambitions.

As it transpired, it wasn't quite a true-run race, and after leading for the last four laps, Prefontaine ended up fourth - narrowly outsprinted for bronze by Britain's Ian Stewart (after whom, by the way, I am named).

Three years later Prefontaine was killed when he crashed his gold MG while returning from a party in the hills outside Eugene, just hours after he'd won a 5,000-metre race at Hayward Field. Yet Prefontaine still breathes all around Eugene and all week his spirit has been manifestly permeating the 2008 trials. "Pre Lives" is the only tee-shirt selling in the town.

The stadium was given a €5-million facelift before the trials, its official capacity set at 15,200. Last Monday 20,949 somehow squeezed in, and reports indicate it was one of best evenings in the long history of Hayward Field.

The excitement and noise peaked when three Oregon-based runners - Nick Symmonds, Andrew Wheating and Christian Smith - filled the three qualifying positions in the men's 800 metres. Smith, ranked 29th of the 30 entries, literally threw himself over the finish line to edge out the four-time US champion Khadevis Robinson. So Smith goes to Beijing, while Robinson, who also finished fourth at the trials eight years ago, stays at home.

"It's the worst feeling in the world," said Robinson.

Katie McGregor finished fourth over 10,000 metres, just as she did four years ago. And just a thousandth of a second separated Lauryn Williams (third) from Marshavet Hooker (fourth) over 100 metres - though at least Hooker will probably get to go in the relay.

Other highlights included the men's 100 metres, where Tyson Gay, after nearly messing up in the heats, posted the fastest time in history: 9.68 seconds. The wind was above the legal limit and so ruled out a world record, but it was a stunning race nonetheless. Travis Padgett ran 9.85 but that was only good for fourth, behind Gay, Walter Dix (9.80) and Darvis Patton (9.84). The top six all broke 10 seconds, and that's not entirely down to the wind.

The US Olympic trials are incredibly competitive. Jeremy Wariner, the reigning Olympic 400-metre champion, discovered that when he was beaten into second by LaShawn Merritt, 44.40 to 44.20. Out in lane eight, David Neville ran 44.61 to finish third and book a ticket to Beijing.

There are dozens of stories like this. Jeff Hartwig missed out in the pole vault for the past two Olympics but finished second this time and, at age 40, makes the team for Beijing.

"The Olympic trials are even more stressful than the Olympics," said Adam Nelson, who made his third consecutive Games in the shot. "It's brutal."

The trials conclude tomorrow, and of course I should be there. But it's just been decided that Hayward Field will again host the 2012 US Olympic trials, and I'm already working up the nerve to ask the Sports Editor to send me.