UC Riverside freshman Sean Ferrera, competing in the jr men's 400m hurdles at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championship, finished in eighth place in Saturday's first round heat, advancing to Sunday's final scheduled for 4:05 pm PT. (
watch the race)
The jr. events at the championship are for athletes aged 19 and younger. Ferrera's time of 53.63 was .57 seconds off of his best time of the year (53.06 at the Big West Conference Championship) and 2.31 seconds off Saturday's first round pace.
Ferrera joins junior Brenda Martinez as members of the Highlanders track and field squad competing in Sunday's final day of competition. Martinez is running in the finals of the 800m at 1:44 pm after a controversial semifinal race on Friday.
After finishing fourth in her semifinal heat with a time of 2:04.85, Martinez's spot in the finals seemed assured as the top four finishers in each heat were slated to advance. However meet organizers altered those rules earlier in the day so that only the first three finishers in each heat would advance along with the next two fastest times regardless of heat.
There was only one problem: nobody bothered to tell the event participants about the change.
Martinez, thinking she needed to finish fourth to advance, did just that. Under the new guidelines, however, fourth place wasn't good enough.
UC Riverside Director of Track & Field and Cross Country immediately lodged a protest, and some two hours after Martinez crossed the finish line, meet organizers apologized for the confusion and her spot in the finals was granted. Given that they had already announced the eight-person field for the finals, Martinez actually becomes the ninth participant in the event.