Fil-Am runner puts 800 gold, Olympic berth in crosshairs

Filipino-American runner Carter Lily.

CLARK—Twenty-four-year-old Carter Lilly is shooting for the 800-meter gold and Tokyo Olympic slot when the Southeast Asian Games track and field gets going on Dec. 6 here.

But he has already earned his share of admirers this early.

He just came from a 24-hour travel from Cedar Rapids to Denver and San Francisco, and admitted he was fighting off jet lag.

His foremost concern is to recover and acclimatized well enough for his Dec. 9 event where he is a favorite.“I’m used to competing in the heat, although not this hot,” said Lilly who first came here last summer for the national open.

Carter momentarily paused his physiology studies to focus on his Olympic dream.

And it’s not entirely a far-fetched goal.

Lilly’s personal best is one minute, 46.95 seconds, which he achieved last June in California. That’s 1.34 seconds faster than the SEA Games record of Malaysian Sansun Vellabouy in the 1989 edition.

The Olympic qualifying time is 1:45.20.