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Vin Lananna called for a professional track series in the U.S. while talking with reporters Thursday at Hayward Field.

(Pete Christopher/The Oregonian)

EUGENE – TrackTown USA president Vin Lananna called Thursday for a U.S. professional track circuit, and said he was ready to help make it happen.

Speaking in the media center for the IAAF World Junior Track & Field Championships at Hayward Field, Lananna said the best U.S. post-collegians should not be forced to go to Europe to find a place to compete.

"We go to Liege, Belgium and I stand on the sidelines and I look at the 1,500 meters, and I see the same event I could see in Eugene," Lananna said.

He said the participants are "are exactly the same people except they're $2,000 poorer because they paid to get over there, they're exhausted from the trip, no one really knows who they are and their performances are buried in obscurity."

This is where the Run TrackTown High Performance Meet comes in.

It's a one-hour and 40-minute, eight-event affair Saturday at Hayward Field, starting shortly after that day's session of the World Junior Championships.

Admission is free for those with tickets to the World Juniors that day.

Lananna sees it as a prototype for the summer or early-fall series he envisions.

"The whole country needs to step forward," Lananna said. "Until somebody steps up, this is it. We're going to do what we can here. Hopefully it will be a good model for places like New York City and Los Angeles.

"If it sounds like I'm calling out all these major cities, I absolutely am."

One step at a time. For starters, Lananna wants a West Coast series with stops for meets at, say, Cal and Stanford. They would be followed by meets in, say, Eugene, Portland and Seattle.

The series is important, Lananna said, because Eugene can't shoulder the whole load.

"No one is going to come from Europe for one event," he said.

This year's Run TrackTown High Performance Meet is nestled neatly into a one-month break in this year's Diamond League schedule.

Events include the women's hammer, men's high jump, men's triple jump, the men's 4x800 relay, the women's 4x800 relay, the men's 1,500 and the men's 110 hurdles.

The meet has a total of $57,000 in prize money. Individual winners earn $3.500.

Participating athletes received a travel stipend, free food and lodging.

Among the athletes scheduled to compete are reigning Olympic gold medalists Christian Taylor (triple jump) and Aries Merritt (110 hurdles), two-time Olympian Jesse Williams (high jump), UO post-collegians Britney Henry (hammer), Elijah Greer (4x800), Laura Roesler (4x800), Trevor Dunbar (1,500), A.J. Acosta (1,500) and Jordan McNamara (1,500).

Of course, Eugene has a connection to professional track & field with the annual Prefontaine Classic, and top-level, post-collegiate training groups such as the Bowerman Track Club, Oregon Track Club Elite, and the Nike Oregon Project, all based in the state.

A successful series could help raise the profile of top-level pros in communities outside of TrackTown.

At least, that is Lananna's hope.

"If we ever want to talk about a way that athletes are going to have name recognition in the country that they win medals for, they have to compete in the country they win medals for," Lananna said. "No one knows who they are."

He used Ashton Eaton, world record-holder and reigning Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, as an example.

"It's a pity that Ashton Eaton can walk through the airport in Portland and have no problem at all with security," Lananna said. "And yet, he can go into Brussels and need a security guard because everybody is after him for an autograph."

-- Ken Goe | @KenGoe