Sean Tobin’s brilliant performance
The NCAA Indoor Championships took place over the weekend and Sean Tobin had a very busy week. To qualify for the National Championships athletes needed to finish within the top 16 of their individual events by the end of the season. Those 16 representatives in each event were competing not only for the team and individual National Championships, but also to grasp one of the coveted top eight spots as First Team All American status. Places nine to 16 receive the Second Team Distinction. He was part of the Distance Medley Relay that were defending their title won last year. Sean ran in the 800M, clocking 1 mins 50.7 secs, in the DMR and in a very competitive final the team finished 10th.
Going into the Mile, Sean qualified as the 16th qualifier with his great performance at the Millrose games in New York when finishing in 3 mins 58.28 secs, just shows you the standard at these National Championships. He was in the 2nd heat and so he knew that he had to run faster than 4 mins 4.76 secs to qualified for the final. His semi-final had all the big guns including the defending Champion Josh Kerr of New Mexico. So, after the initial charge, Sean went to the front and led the race up until the last 100m when the field all came together as every athlete tried to make the final. In a hectic finish Sean got the final qualifying place by one hundredth of a second to qualify for the Final, his time was 4 mins 2.35 secs. In the Final Sean ran very well when finishing 10th in 4 mins 6.90 secs. This was a brilliant achievement by Sean to qualify as one of the top ten indoor milers in American colleges for 2018, this was also Sean’s first time qualifying for a NCAA Indoor Championships as an individual, he was on the DMR team that were 1st and 3rd in previous years.