Not bad for a season opener.

Nick Symmonds, who wasn’t even planning on competing at the 35th annual Prefontaine Classic one month ago, handled a world-class field in the 800 meters with surprising ease before a sell-out crowd of 12,841 at Hayward Field on Sunday.

Symmonds, of Oregon Track Club Elite, moved to the front of the pack at the 200-meter mark, and then unleashed his trademark kick over the final 100 to claim his second Pre Classic title with a time of 1 minute, 45.86 seconds.

“I’ll take it,” Symmonds said. “That was my first real race of the season, and I just wanted to compete. I wasn’t that concerned with my time.”

The 2008 Olympian didn’t run at all for the entire month of March due to knee tendinitis, but after a successful test in a low-key race on the Nike campus in Beaverton two weeks ago, he decided he was fit enough to jump into the Pre meet.

Symmonds first made a name for himself in the Eugene-Springfield community by winning the 800 at the 2007 Pre Classic, and he solidified his reputation on a national basis with his memorable victory at the U.S. Olympic Trials last summer.

With expectations growing, he said this race felt different.

“There was more pressure coming into this one,” Symmonds said.

“People know that I have the potential to win this race now, so that’s a little bit of extra weight on my shoulders. But I kind of respond to that. I like knowing that people are here to watch me run well.”

And he did exactly that.

After a slower-than-expected first lap of 51.65 seconds, Symmonds took charge of the race on the backstretch, but it wasn’t until former OTC Elite teammate Christian Smith moved up onto his shoulder on the final turn that he flipped the switch.

“That’s when I really woke up,” Symmonds said. “The crowd was there the whole time, but when Christian came up on my shoulder, that’s when it really started to get going.”

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