Devers, Dibaba, Lagat, Isinbayeva Shine at the Garden

100th Running of the Milrose Games at Madison Square Garden: Event Highlights

Gail Devers, at age 40, won the women's 60M hurdles by a step in 7.86. She beat her friend and student, Danielle Carruthers, whom Devers has been coaching for the past year. Devers first ran at Millrose when she was 15 and has been a world-class athlete and olympian since. Millrose was her first race after having taken some time off to give birth to her first child, daughter Karsen, who was on hand to celebrate after the win Friday night. “I don’t care how old I am, my goal is to win the race,” Devers said at a press conference on Wednesday. “I say 40 is the new 20. I honestly believe that. My body responds that way.”

Tonight Bernard Lagat, a Kenyan (who runs for the US), took his fifth win at the Millrose Game's signature event, the Wanamaker Mile in a time of 3:54:26.

8-time champion Eamonn Coghlan set off the starter gun and after the race congratulated Lagat. “Eamonn gave it to me today; he said, ‘You have three more to go,’ ” Lagat said. “I love New York and I love running in this competition. So why not come again and try for a sixth one?" Allen Webb, a track-star phenom who broke the national high school record at the 1500, has been struggling over the past few years. Always a crowd favorite, Webb received huge applause from the crowd which only seemed to fire him up more, given that he was already jumping and howling and cheering during the warm up. He fell back with five laps to go and never recovered, coming in fourth. Read more about the Wanamaker Mile in coverage by The New York Times.

Having set a new world indoor record only a week before in Boston, 21-year old Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia ran a stunning, but not record-breaking Women's 3,000 tonight. The 3,000 encompases no less than 20 laps of the Garden’s 145-meter oval. A valiant effort to keep up by American Sarah Hall left Hall teetering on the edge as she was assisted off the track once the race ended, while Dibaba, smiling, celebrated with the large Ethiopian crowd and ran a lap with her nation's flag.
In her American debut, Women's Pole Vault reigning World Champion and Olympic gold medalist, 23 year old Yelena Isinbayeva, cleared cleared 15-9¾ on her first attempt to set a Millrose, Garden and United States all-comers record. She raised the bar a 1/2 inch beyond her current world indoor record, but was unsuccessful at all three attempts to set a new world record.