Aretha Thurmond gives a shout out to American throwers, plus other links...

In her latest blog post, three time US Olympian and University of Washington alum Aretha Thurmond (left/photo courtesy USA Track & Field) asks, "If someone ask you which events the USA dominates in track and field what would be your response?  Most say sprints, hurdles and maybe relays."

She goes on to cite that American throwers often are overlooked in the track & field conversation.

Thurmond backs up this assertion with some fun facts, courtesy of all-athletics.com, one of the sport's premier stats sites.

In an article on that site, the USA (men) and Germany (women) are the top countries in the throwing rankings.

To read Aretha's post, please click here.

Kale Schmidt of the men's track and field team is the Gohuskies.com Student-Athlete of the Week for the week of Jan. 10-16. This is the first such honor for the Schmidt and the track and field team this year.

In his first collegiate meet as a Husky, Schmidt, a freshman out of Stanwood HS, posted two top-five individual finishes at the UW Indoor Preview on Saturday at the Dempsey Indoor.

He was fourth in the long jump (22-11/6.98m), and tied for fourth in the high jump (6-5/1.96m), and ran a leg on the Huskies' 4 x 400 relay that clocked 3:14.51and finished second to Oregon.

You can read the full story here.

In its multi-part preview of the 2011 Husky track & field team, GoHuskies.com has links previewing the men's distance runners and its sprinters.  You can read about the sprint squad here, and the male distance runners here.

All for now!