Gainesville is a hotbed for track stars thanks to UF coach Mike Holloway.
By ANTONYA ENGLISH
Published May 8, 2004
GAINESVILLE - When the time came to seriously begin training for a second Olympic bid, former Florida All-America sprinter John Capel knew exactly where he needed to be.
In Gainesville with Florida men's track coach Mike Holloway.
Holloway has been Capel's personal coach since 1999 when he helped the 200-meter specialist qualify for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Capel is not alone. Drop by the Percy Beard track on any given weekday morning and you will find a collection of elite track and field athletes in training.
"It's good to be around great ones," said Capel, who finished a disappointing eighth in the 200-meter finals in Sydney and hopes for a better outcome this time. "It really is good for me. Every day I'm out here on the track and we've got Olympic finalists out here. So it's always fun."
Olympic 4x100 gold medalist Bernard Williams is among those training with Capel. Also a former UF All-American, he has trained with Holloway the past five years.
In all, Olympic athletes from Barbados, Jamaica, Canada and Poland are training at the UF facilities, Holloway said. They are sprinters, hurdlers, decathletes and pole vaulters.
They are drawn by a number of things.
"I think it's the weather, the facilities and what we've been able to do here," Holloway said. "Especially when the Olympics are in a warm weather climate similar to what they'll compete in, as it will be in Athens, that's a huge factor."
With the Athens Olympics just three months away, the athletes are beginning to test themselves in competition. Capel competed in Jamaica on Friday, finishing second in the 100 meters in 10.13 seconds. It was his first race since beginning his latest training with Holloway. Williams is scheduled to race in California today.
"They are both doing very well," Holloway said. "I'm very pleased with both their training and how they are coming along. They seem to be grasping what I want them to do and we'll see how well they'll grasp once they start racing.
"There is still work to do, but you have to find a starting point."
Working with the elite athletes also benefits the Florida student-athletes, Holloway said.
"It actually helps me working with them because the things I'm teaching John and Bernard, I can also teach my college guys," he said.
Holloway, the 2003 NCAA East Region coach of the year, joined the Florida staff as an associate head coach in 1995 and was named coach in 2002.
He has earned the reputation as one of the premier sprint coaches in the nation, having trained 18 college All-Americans, and has led UF to five national championships.
Under Holloway, Capel won gold in the 200 meters and led the gold-medal winning 4x100 relay team (including Williams) at the 2003 World Championships in Paris. Dennis Mitchell was under Holloway's tutelage when he won the 100-meter titles in the 1992 and 1996 U.S. Olympic trials. Holloway has coached an Olympic trials champion in each of the past three Olympiads.
In 1997, Mark Everett had the second fastest 800-meters performance ever by an American (1:43.20) in Austria while working under Holloway. He also has coached Marcel Carter, a semifinalist in the indoor and outdoor 200 meters at the USA Track and Field Championships.
The athletes who train under Holloway credit him for the influx of elite athletes to Gainesville, but he is more modest.
"I think I would have to say most of it is Florida and the climate, but obviously the success I've had helps," he said. "For the sprinters, the attraction is that I've coached John and Bernard and they're aware of that and the success I've had with others. People tend to gravitate toward success. But I always tell people a big part of my success is that I've been fortunate to have a lot of talent to work with. I can't make anybody an Olympian."
Elite athletes have trained in Gainesville for years. Since 1972, Florida has produced 17 Olympians. Among them: Frank Shorter, Keith Brantly, Marty Liquori, Dennis Mitchell, Mark Everett, Hazel Clark and Jearl Miles-Clark.
Across town and away from the UF campus, a different set of elite runners use Gainesville as their training ground. The area has become a hotbed for elite Eastern European female marathoners, with about 15 having trained there at various times during the winter. Many make Gainesville their home for eight to 10 months out of the year.
Ramilia Burangulova, a 42-year-old who won the masters division and finished ninth overall among women (2:34:08) in the Boston Marathon, is among them. She ran as many as 130 miles weekly in southwest Gainesville while training for the marathon. Tatyana Pozdnyakova, a 49-year-old Ukrainian, won her second straight Los Angeles Marathon in March, and Russia's Firaya Sultanova, 42, finished third among women at the Country Music Marathon in Nashville two weeks ago.
Pozdnyakova and Burangulova trained in Gainesville in the late 1980s and early 1990s while members of the Soviet Union Olympic team.
For Capel and the other runners, the area offers the best of what is necessary to compete at the highest level.
"It's always a good atmosphere around here," Capel said. "The athletes and the people, they make the training worthwhile."
- Information from other news organizations was used in the report.
