Future of track is here for Eugene.

Byline: Ron Bellamy The Register-Guard

A few minutes after the conclusion of an especially remarkable Prefontaine Classic, a backhoe chugged to the middle of Hayward Field, and dug a deep brown gash in the soft green turf.

It was the ceremonial ground-breaking for the $7.4-million project to prepare the facility for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials, and for a future in the sport far beyond that event.

Today, the Hayward Field track will be closed. Which is another profound symbol that, in track and field, Eugene is once again open for business.

Sunday, as a standing-room only crowd of 13,244 roared in approval of some amazing performances - the gritty kick to victory by a new hometown hero, Nick Symmonds of Oregon Track Club Elite; the can-you-believe-it 15th straight Pre Classic victory by a longtime local favorite, Maria Mutola; the fastest mile on American soil by Kenya's Daniel K. Komen - you had to wonder how loud it could get next year.

Because then, for the Olympic Trials, the facility will hold 15,000, and temporary bleachers and skyboxes will encircle the track, creating a wall to hold in the noise that already can be ear-splitting.

Sunday, it was loud enough, as befitting the performances. In some years, the Pre Classic has defined itself by world-leading performances - a function of its relatively early date on the meet schedule, as well as the caliber of the fields - but Sunday offered Komen's American all-comer's record in the mile, and an American record in the two-mile by Matt Tegenkamp, and a bunch of Pre Classic records (eight, plus two records for new events) and Hayward Field records (six).

All that in a meet and venue with enough history that records don't come cheaply.

In the steeplechase, Paul Koech of Kenya took the Hayward Field record of the great Henry Rono off the books; it had endured since 1978. In the long jump, Irving Saladino of Panama matched the field record of Mike Powell and broke a meet record set in 1992. In the 800, Symmonds surpassed the meet record of an American 800-meter icon, Johnny Gray, dating to 1996.

Over the years, as an IAAF Grand Prix event and with Nike's financial support, the Pre Classic has become very much an international event, and that was evident Sunday. Thirteen of the 20 winners came from foreign countries: From the Czech Republic, and Panama, and Jamaica, and Trinidad, and Kenya (twice), and Mexico, and Uzbekistan, and China, and Congo, and Ethiopia, and Australia, and Mozambique.

Of course, that latter athlete, Mutola, lived and trained here for years, and this community has shared her triumphs, and that incredible winning streak that dates to 1992 - when, for perspective, Nick Symmonds was 8 years old.

When this latest victory was secured, Mutola put her face in her hands, as if in disbelief at what she had done, yet again, and fell to the track.

Her race number, yet again, was No. 1, and if ever a meet should retire a race number, the Pre Classic should one day retire that number, in her honor.

But it was a kid in his first Pre Classic 800 who also brought the crowd to its feet and revved up the noise. Because the crowd knew that wasn't just anybody kicking off the turn; that Symmonds ran up the road at Willamette University, and trains here with the OTC Elite, and was running on his hometown track.

Which was part of the master plan, when the University of Oregon hired Vin Lananna as director of track and field in 2005. Because hiring Lananna was the key to getting the Trials; without him, it wouldn't have happened. Getting the Trials required the updating of Hayward Field, and planted the seeds for the renaissance of the postcollegiate running community here, athletes for the Hayward Field fans to care about, exemplified Sunday by Symmonds.

In just two years, Eugene, so intricately linked to the past of track and field in this country, has presented itself as its future, too.

The key to all that has been Lananna; he's the single person who could bring together support from USA Track & Field, from Nike, from the university, from the community.

"Lananna's coaching spurs Eugene's track revival," read the headline for a story in USA Today last week, in which reporter Dick Patrick wrote that Lananna "collaborated with school officials on a job description that goes beyond coaching and vying for Pac-10 and NCAA titles. It includes attracting major events, improving facilities, promoting the program and re-establishing Eugene as a major player."

Another Eugene-datelined story last week, by respected track and field reporter Gene Cherry for Reuters, the international news agency, began this way: "New lights are shining on an old sport in this American university town. Track and field is back in the spotlight, and for more than the one day of the Prefontaine Classic grand prix meeting. ... Not since the 1970s and early 1980s, when Eugene hosted three consecutive U.S. Olympic Trials, had there been so much support for the sport."

The Pre Classic has been a crowd-pleasing sellout for some years now, but in too many of those years, it was the single day of track and field excitement here, followed distantly by the state high school championships. The sense you get is that things will be different now; that track and field in Eugene is, once again, more than a single, fabulous day.

There's a new commitment and a new vision. Even as organizers prepare for the 2008 Olympic Trials, it's with the thought of what Eugene must do to be the prohibitive favorite to host the Trials in 2012.

And so Sunday's Pre Classic was memorable because of Symmonds, and Mutola, and Komen and Koech and others. And because of that hole dug in the ground after the meet, promising memories yet to come.