2005 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships

The 2005 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships was organised by USA Track & Field and held from June 23 to 26 at The Home Depot Center in Carson, California. The four-day competition served as the national championships in track and field for the United States and also the trials for the 2005 World Championships in Athletics.[1]

It was the first that the stadium in Carson had held the combined gender national track and field event, but the fourth straight time that the event was hosted in California, having previously been to Sacramento and Palo Alto.[2] The Home Depot Center launched the Adidas Track Classic earlier that year, which was briefly a prominent annual track meeting for American athletes.[3] The USA Junior Championships were held in conjunction with the event and the events served as selection for the 2005 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships.[4][5]

Athletes that finished in the top three of their event and held the IAAF qualifying standard were eligible to represent the United States at the 2005 World Championships. The United States was able to send three athletes per event to the competition, excluding any American reigning world champions, who received automatic qualification separate from the national selection. The World Championships national selection for the marathon and 50 kilometres walk were incorporated into the discrete national championship meets for those events. Selection for the relay races were made by committee.[5][6]

On the first day, 2004 Olympic champion Timothy Mack became a high profile omission from the national team and he finished outside of the top three of the men's pole vault.[7] The men's 100 m provided drama with the initial disqualification of reigning Olympic champion Justin Gatlin for a false start being overturned. Gatlin won the title while fellow Olympic winner Maurice Greene pulled up injured mid-race. Gatlin also won the 200 m, being the first to do that double since Kirk Baptiste in 1985.[8] Erin Gilreath won the women's hammer throw in an American record mark of 73.87 m (242 ft 4 ¹⁄₄ in). Stacy Dragila won a seventh straight women's pole vault title (her ninth in total).[9][10] Tim Broe had a third straight men's 5000 m win in a championship record time. Hammer thrower James Parker also won his third consecutive national title while javelin specialist Breaux Greer extended his unbeaten run to six.[8]

A total of twelve athletes selected from the national championships went on to win individual gold medals at the World Championships that year.[11] A total of 120 athletes were selected for the national team as a result of the national championships.[12]

One athlete was disqualified for a doping infraction: Rickey Harris, a men's 400 m hurdles finalist, was later shown to have failed a drug test a month earlier at the same venue.[13][14] Sprinters Marion Jones, Chryste Gaines and Tim Montgomery both attended but withdrew from the championships, citing injury. Montgomery and Gaines were banned from the sport later that year for doping as part of the BALCO scandal, which also implicated Jones.[15][16][17]

The meet was marred before it began as official Paul Suzuki was killed, being struck in the head by a shot put during practice for the shot put competition.[18] The resulting analysis of official's procedures and risk management[19] greatly affected the conduct of throwing events since.[20][21]