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Walter Dix storms the sprint circuit.
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- Jason McDonald
Ten Below, Dix Sprinting Towards Beijing
By Jason McDonald
Few residents of Florida could ever imagine seeing ten below in the palm tree laden state. That is unless you happen to be a sprinter named Walter Dix from Florida State University. Dix hopes to see well below ten often- ten seconds that is, every time he runs 100 meters.
Following this weekend's performance in the NCAA Championships, Dix, a junior at FSU, will most likely cast off his collegiate body suit for that of a professional one. Over the last four weeks the Seminole sprinter has recorded some of his best times.
Two weeks ago at the NCAA East Regional competition in Gainesville, Florida Dix nearly clipped the 10 second threshold in the 100 meter dash running a school record 10.05 secs in the finals. With competition Dix may have run below ten seconds. The second place competitor Greg Bolden, also from FSU, ran a respectable 10.30.
Later in the day the speedster came back to run two sets of sub-10 second 100 meters demolishing the collegiate record in the 200 meter dash with a blistering time of 19.69 s.
Dix certainly seems to be peaking going into the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships in Indianapolis, Indiana two weeks from now. After a long week of preliminaries that included three separate sets of preliminary heats for the 100 meter, 200 meter and 4 x 100 meter relay, Dix still managed to more than dazzle the Sacramento crowd.
All eyes were on the Seminoles top rated 4 x 100 m relay team as Dix took the hand-off and exploded down the back straight eating up the stagger to help claim the day's first victory on the oval. Less than two hours later Dix strapped it up again for the 100 meter finals. A second place finisher in 2006, Dix electrified the crowd running away from the rest of the field breaking the tape in 9.93 seconds.
Was there enough left in the tank to double up with a win in the 200 meter dash? Less than 24 hours after nearly tying the 11-year old meet record 9.92 s in the 100 meters set by UCLA's Ato Bolden, Dix blew away the 200 meter field to claim the title as the Fastest Collegian with an almost pedestrian 20.32 s finish.
"[Winning the 100m and 200m] is something I've been working on since my freshman year," Dix said. "So now I've got that out of the way. I still have the 100 meter record to get, but that's my next thing to do."
Now that he has the time to focus on improving his start out of the blocks, Dix could very well get within reach of the world mark of 9.77 s set by Asafa Powell of Jamaica. Before he sees Powell head-to-head, he'll need to show and prove against the nation's best professional sprinters at the 2007 Outdoor Championships in two weeks and the 2008 Olympic Trials one week later.
Should he succeed, Dix could be well on his way to claiming gold in Beijing and the title of "World's Fastest Man".