Jeshua Anderson pressed, but gets the win in Madrid, plus other news and notes...

Washington State University alum Jeshua Anderson (above/photo by Howard Lao), who is tuning up for the US Olympic Trials, won the 400 hurdles Thursday at the IAAF World Challenge meeting in Madrid, Spain.

Anderson held off the charge of Eric Cray of the Philippines, winning in a time of 48.96 to 48.98, which was a national record for Cray.

This was Anderson’s second meet in Europe this month, having run in Luzern on June 14th, where he finished second in a close race to Karlem Hussein of Switzerland 49.47 to 49.51.

Complete results of the IAAF World Challenge meet in Madrid are available here.

In Durbin, South Africa, Jordin Andrade of the Seattle Speed TC won his qualifying heat of the 400 hurdles at the African Championships, running 51.22, to advance to Friday’s finals.

The Boise State alum, who will represent Cape Verde at the Olympics, will compete in the finals against a field that includes LJ van Zyl and Comel Fredericks of South Africa, Amadou Ndiaye of Senegal, and Boniface Mucheru of Kenya.

Results of the African Championships are available here.

The USA Junior Track & Field championships get underway Friday in Clovis, California, and the following athletes with Washington ties are entered, headlined by 1500m American junior record holder Alexa Efraimson of Camas:

w 200/400—Maya Harewood (Bothell HS/High Voltage)

w 1500—Alexa Efraimson (Nike)

w 3000—Ruby Watson (Sehome HS/Whatcom Tesseract)

m PV—Chase Smith (UW)

w TJ—Chinne Okoronkwo (Mountlake Terrrace HS/Flying AJs)

m JT--Austin Beyer (Idaho/Southridge HS, Kennewick)

These athletes are competing for spots on the USA world junior championships team that will travel to Bydgoszcz, Poland for the IAAF World Under-20 championship meet, with the top two finishers who hold the qualifying standard moving on.

USATF announced earlier on Thursday that the time schedule for the meet would be modified as a precaution to heat advisories in the area.

The start lists for the USA junior championships are available here.  The meet will be webcast ($) on USATF.tv.  The updated time schedule is available here.

Finally, a slew of athletes with Washington ties are in Gresham for Thursday night’s Stumptown Twilight meet at Mt. Hood Community College, in a last chance attempt to qualify for the US Olympic Trials in Eugene, and get a Olympic qualifying mark.  For those who already have one and/or both, this meet serves as a tuneup for the trials.

The meet offers the following events:  800, 1500, 3000 steeple, and 5000

Olympians Galen Rupp and Matthew Centrowitz of the Nike Oregon Project are the headliners. 

Flotrack ($) will offer live streaming of the meet.

The start list is available here.