© Copyright 2018 – Athletics Illustrated
Toronto native, Justyn Knight, who is attending Syracuse University, won the NCAA 5,000m indoor title at the NCAA Division 1 Track and Field Championships, Friday. He finished in the time of 14:14:47 at the event held the Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium at Texas A&M University located in in College Station, TX.
He finished second in the 3,000m event.
Knight told Athletics Illustrated, “I’m very fortunate to place in the top two in both my races. Obviously, I’m very happy with my performance but not satisfied with the result. I’ll take a couple days off and then I will continue to train for a good outdoor season.”
This performance was his second NCAA Div. 1 title; he also won the Cross-Country Championships, in November 2017.
He expects and will likely get his third NCAA title this spring when he runs outdoors in his specialty, the 5,000m. “I’m hoping to run some fast times and get another championship under my belt.”
Fellow Canadians Mike Tate who attends Southern Utah and Rory Linkletter from Brigham Young finished fourth and sixth, respectively.
During the title race he kept himself in the middle of the pack. With just 400m remaining in the race, he took the lead.
Andy Trouard of Northern Arizona won the 3,000m.
Knight had also qualified for the IAAF World Indoor Track and Field Championships in the 3,000m. The qualification standard was 7:52. He had qualified with a 7:45.86 in New York on Feb. 3, 2018.
The 21-year-old owns an outdoor 5,000m best of 13:17.51 from May 2017 at the Payton Jordan Invite. His best indoors is 13:50.79 from a meet at Clemson University two weeks ago.
St. Catharine’s Mohammed Ahmed owns the national 3,000m and 5,000m outdoor records of 7:40.49 and 13:01.74 as well as the indoor records with his performances of 7:40.11 and 13:04.60.
