Freshman sprinter Dong Woo Shin was sulking in the bleachers this weekend at the Raleigh Relays, upset with his performance in the 100-meter dash.

His 11.5 clocking was four-tenths of a second slower than his personal best time he ran in high school. But Syracuse track and field head coach Andrew Roberts wasn’t nearly as hard on Shin.

‘I was pleased because he did what I asked him to do, but he did it to such a degree that he over-exaggerated,’ Roberts said. ‘I was pleased to see that he was at least able to focus on something and take it with him (to the race).’

Roberts is in the process of teaching Shin the correct running form, from start to finish. Shin did all the things he and Roberts worked on for the past week. Roberts says it takes time for runners’ muscles to memorize these movements. Until then, Shin and others concentrate too much on completing the new sprinting style.

‘I think I did pretty good keeping my forms,’ he said. ‘It was definitely strange. It’s really hard to do all that at the same time.’

Shin had another learning experience in Raleigh, running the first leg of the 4×100-meter relay. Shin said he didn’t even know how to hold the baton prior to the race, but the Orange safely completed its exchanges for a third-place finish in its heat.

The relay didn’t place overall, though, and the best finish for any SU athlete was fourth at Raleigh. Roberts hadn’t looked at all of the results and evaluated them by practice on Monday afternoon.

‘What I did see on the track was unimpressive,’ he said. ‘There were exceptions, but not enough exceptions for me to sit there and feel that we are where we need to be.’

Senior high jumper Jenna Grimaldi, a former All-American, jumped 5-feet 7-inches. She has jumped 6 feet in high school, but hasn’t returned to that level. Roberts expected at least a 5-foot-9-inch clearance in the poor weather conditions.

That burden is on Grimaldi, but for Shin, a non-scholarship freshman, Roberts blamed himself for not telling Shin to just run the race and forget the form momentarily.

Shin isn’t the only runner with this technical problem.

‘He had no concept as any freshman would on scholarship or no scholarship of what it’s like to really sprint,’ Roberts said.

Shin said his goal is to qualify for ECAC/IC4A Championships beginning May 12 as a 200-meter runner. The qualifying time of 21.8 would be a personal best for Shin.

‘I have no doubt that he’s going to achieve that for the very reason that he pays attention,’ Roberts said. ‘He’s one of the people that I enjoy working with because he takes it in and he wants it so much regardless of his level of talent. He comes from a perspective of ‘thank you coach, I hear you.’ That’s what makes working with him easy, because he’s accepting.’

Published on March 27, 2005 at 12:00 pm