Shaquille Dill IslandStats.com Shaquille Dill who has improved his 800 metres time by more than 23 seconds over the past five years, opened his 2014 season in an impressive manner. Competing for the first time at the two-day David Hemery Valentine Invitational Indoor Meet at Boston University’s 200 metres track facility, Dill competed in the first and fastest of 25 sections for the 800 metres event run. Dill covered the 800 metres in 1:49.41 – two tenths of a second behind the winner. Despite being jostled a couple times during the four-lap indoor race - causing a brief loss to his rhythm on each occasion - Dill recovered and finished strongly to claim second place. Following the race Dill said, “I felt really good. If I hadn’t been pushed a couple times during the race I believe I would have run in the 1:48’s…a low 1:48.”
More than two hundred athletes competed in the men’s 800 metres event. Dill’s 1:49.41 is a new indoor personal best. His previous indoor best was 1:53.05, achieved at the 2011 New England Indoor Open Track and Field Championships at Harvard University, emerging the winner on that occasion.
Coach Gerry Swan said, “This is the fastest Dill has ever run at this early stage of any season. His best outdoor 800 metres time is 1:47.76 achieved last year at the World University Games in Kazan, Russia where he was a finalist.”
Another Bermudian male athlete Dage Minors and his Franklin Pierce University Men's Track and Field teammates competed in the BU David Hemery Valentine Invitational, hosted by Boston University at BU Track & Tennis Center.
Minors competed in the Mile, where he finished 10th in the Heat Seven where he clocked a time of 4:19.66, his time saw him finish 125th out of 307 competitors.
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