This year’s 105th running of the Millrose Games taking place this February 11th is “actually bitter sweet for me,” explains the Brooklyn-born, Long Island raised 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist Natasha Hastings returning to the familiar track of her stellar high-school career while at A. Phillip Randolph. “I’ve run there before the track was even banked. It’s an awesome track,” states Hastings referring to The Armory in Washington Heights which is the venue for this year’s event having relocated from it’s prestigious former site at Madison Square Garden. “We’re talking about a meet that has over a 100 years of history at the Garden,” says the defending Women’s 400-meter Indoor Champion adding, “but it may be a good thing for the event … Fast times always [at The Armory].”
And Hastings will need to be at her fastest at 8:37pm on Saturday evening as her event features Outdoor American Record Holder Sanya Richards-Ross and Brooklyn native Mary Wineberg, who were both teammates of Hastings on the Gold Medal winning 4x400 Women’s Relay team at the Beijing Games. In a season, which Hastings admits brings “tons of emotions, excitement, [and] nerves," she offers of the competition “I think it’s going to be a fast race.”
And 2012 brings out the fastest competition as the lures of Olympic victory and prestige entice many an athlete, both current and the not-so-current, who may have previously realized glory, to lace up the spikes and attempt to represent Team USA at this year’s US Olympic Trials in June. For the former University of South Carolina Gamecock, the required top-three finish at the US Outdoor Championships has thus far eluded her resume, but with “tons of experience under [her] belt,” the self-described ‘400-meter diva’ is “finally ready to get that opportunity in the open 400 … as well as the relay.” And to that cause Hastings explains her “focus is a little bit differ this year … looking to be competitive, but not as serious as an indoor season [while] looking to do more sprinting 100-meters and 200-meters in the outdoor season.”
And this outdoor season, after running unattached last year, Hastings will be running with a her new sponsor having “signed with Under Armor back in October [of last year].” Brand new to the track world, Hastings reveals the Maryland based apparel manufacturer is “working on developing a shoe for me; a spike for competition.” For now the sprinter cannot reveal the details of the spring campaign launch, but she offers that she did request her signature colors of “pink and black in [her] uniform” during a recent visit to the facility where she “saw some of the ideas that they’re coming up with, [and is] excited to get [her] hands and feet in those, awesome gear!”
Ironically it was “going gear-less” last Fall that brought Hastings the most attention after appearing in ESPN The Magazine’s The Body Issue. “It certainly did open some doors,” says Hastings who with the high stakes of this Olympic year is “taking everything in stride...trying to stay focused on what’s important and that’s getting to the Games this summer and getting on the podium.”
