Charles Jock Begins NCAA Quest Wednesday
June 04, 2012 | Men's Track & Field
NCAA Men's Start Lists / NCAA Championship Central
Des Moines Weather
Orange County Register Article
WEBSTREAMING / TV: The NCAA Championships will be streamed live. Wednesday's events will be available via NCAA.com, and Thursday through Saturday on ESPN3.com. Saturday's events also will be televised on ESPNU in a window beginning at 10:00 a.m. (PT).
IRVINE, Calif. --- UC Irvine senior Charles Jock begins his competition in the NCAA Track & Field Championships Wednesday at Drake Stadium in Des Moines, Iowa.
Jock competes in the semifinals of the 800 meters at 4:15 p.m. (PT) Wednesday. He is in lane four of the first heat. The top two finishers in each of the three heats, plus the next two-fastest times, advance to the final Friday at 4:10 p.m. (PT).
Wednesday's first heat features the men with the three-fastest times in the NCAA this season. Jock ran 1:44.75 in winning the Big West Conference title last month, UC Santa Barbara's Ryan Martin had a time of 1:44.77 as runner-up to Jock in the league final, and Penn State's Casimir Loxsom ran 1:46.12 to win the Big Ten championship.
Jock was runner-up at the NCAA Championships last year. He led the race for virtually 799 meters before Virginia's Robby Andrews edged him by four-hundredths of a second at the finish (1:44.71 to 1:44.75).
Jock (1:47.93) finished second to Martin (1:47.79) in their quarterfinal heat at the NCAA West Preliminary Round in Austin, Tex., May 25 to earn spots in Wednesday's semifinals in Des Moines.
Jock, three-time Big West Track Athlete of the Year, was a member of the U.S. team at the IAAF World Championships last summer.
He will compete in the USA Olympic Trials beginning June 22 in Eugene, Ore., in a bid to gain a spot on Team USA for the London Olympics later this summer.
Jock's time of 1:44.75 in winning the Big West title ranks third in the U.S. this season to Nick Symmonds (1:44.32) and Khadevis Robinson (1:44.54). Symmonds and Robinson posted those times at the Prefontaine Classic this past Saturday in Eugene.
Those three men were the American representatives in the 800 at last year's IAAF World Championships.
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