Neugebauer flirts with 9,000 points
Decathlete caps collegiate career with eighth-best score in history in NCAA Champs
For the second time in the last 12 months, Leo Neugebauer of the University of Texas set a collegiate and German national record while winning the decathlon in the NCAA Track & Field Championships on Thursday.
However, the Longhorn senior’s performance at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field was different in at least one notable way from last year’s victory that took place at Mike A. Myers Stadium on the University of Texas campus in Austin.
Neugebauer made a serious run at joining the elite 9,000-point club this time around before finishing with a 8,961-point total that was the eighth-best score in history and gave him an 830-point margin of victory over Mississippi State sophomore Peyton Bair. His total also moved him to sixth on the all-time world performer list and to fourth on the all-time European list.
“It’s unbelievable, I can’t even describe doing that, at this meet,” Neugebauer said when John Anderson of ESPN asked him how it felt to score 8,961 points in the final competition of his collegiate career. “Having so much fun here in my last decathlon in college. I can’t even put my thoughts into words right now.”
Neugebauer, 23, had surprised a lot of people when he totaled a collegiate record of 8,836 points in last year’s NCAA title meet after entering the competition with a personal best of 8,478.
But expectations were much higher at the start of this year’s meet as he had produced a yearly world-leading score of 8,708 points in winning the Texas Relays on March 28. No one had ever come close to totaling such a high score so early in the season, yet Ayden Owens-Delerme of Puerto Rico topped Neugebauer’s total three weeks later when he scored a national record of 8,732 points in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in Walnut, California.
The expectations for Neugebauer rose further on Wednesday evening after he had totaled 4,685 points on the first day of the meet. That score was the best-ever first-day total in collegiate history, and perhaps more importantly, it was 94 points higher than the 4,591 tally he had produced on the first day of his 8,836-point performance last year.
Neugebauer started the second day on Thursday with a solid effort of 14.36 seconds in the 110-meter high hurdles, but he lost some precious time, as well as points, when he hit the ninth of the 10 42-inch high barriers in the race.
His advantage over last year’s pace had been reduced to 61 points at that point in the meet. However, he followed that frustrating performance with a gargantuan throw of 57.70 meters (189 feet 4 inches) on his first of three attempts in the discus.
The effort was the best ever in a decathlon competition and it earned him a whopping 1,032 points in the event while raising his total to 6,646 points after seven events.
That gave him a 657-point lead over second-place Edgar Campre of Miami and left him 117 points ahead of last year’s pace.
After he maintained that advantage in the pole vault by tying his personal best of 5.21 (17-1), a final score of more than 8,900 points seemed quite possible, barring a particularly bad performance in the javelin.
While the javelin is one of Neugebauer’s weaker events at this point in time, his 56.64 (185-10) throw was less than a meter short of what he had thrown during last year’s collegiate record and he entered the 1,500 meters with a 104-point cushion over where he had been back then.
A quick look at the decathlon scoring table for the 1,500 meters showed that Neugebauer could total 8,900 points by running 4:54.72 in the event, whereas a time of 4:46.40 would bring his total to 8,950 and a clocking of 4:38.38 would put him at 9,000 points, a score that had been bettered by only four men — on five occasions — in history.
Although Neugebauer topped the 4:48.00 he had run in the 1,500 during last year’s NCAA meet, his 4:44.61 clocking was worth 652 points and gave him his final total of 8,961.
“It was cool playing with that idea,” Neugebauer said when Anderson asked him about challenging the 9,000-point barrier. “It wasn’t supposed to happen today. I really tried. I passed people for the first time ever, that I had ever passed anyone at the end of the 15. So I tried. It wasn’t enough.”
Neugebauer’s next decathlon is expected to be in the Olympic Games in Paris in August, when he could enter the meet with the best score in the world for the year.
He had the top entry score in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, last August before finishing fifth with a total of 8,645 points in one of the deepest competitions in history.
“I feel great,” he said when Anderson asked him about his preparations for the Olympics. “We’ll go back to work in a week or two. I’m very excited.”
While the second day of the decathlon was the only event on Thursday involving men, finals were held in six women’s events and semifinals were contested in 11 other track events.
Florida, led by Parker Valby’s victory in the 10,000 meters and a 2-4 finish in the long jump, was in first place in the team standings with 26 points, followed by Nebraska with 22, Oregon with 15, Washington with 14½, and Rice with 14.
Arkansas, one of the pre-meet favorites along with Florida and LSU, was in a four-way tie for 26th place with two points, but the Razorbacks advanced a slew of athletes to their respective track finals on Saturday, including the top four qualifiers in the 400, and the leading qualifiers in the 400 hurdles and the 4 x 400 relay.
Valby, a junior, had entered the meet as the heavy favorite in the 10,000 and she won the race in a meet-record time of 31:46.09 after taking the lead with a little more than six laps to go.
Hilda Olemomoi of Alabama placed second in 31:51.89, followed by Taylor Roe of Oklahoma State in 32:17.45. Both times were personal bests for Olenomoi and Roe, despite the fact that the race began in a painfully slow manner as Grace Hartman of North Carolina State was in the lead after running the first lap in 84.82 seconds.
Roe had taken over first place when she came through 800 meters in 2:47.15 and the senior would set the pace for most of the next 17 laps as she clocked 6:37.70 at 2,000 meters, 12:57.06 (6:19.36) at 4,000, and 19:13.16 (6:16.10) at 6,000.
Valby had Olemomoi and Roe for company when she came through 8,000 meters in 25:42.84, but she ran the final two kilometers of the race in 6:03.25 while winning her fifth NCAA title during the past 12 months.
Her first victory had come in the 5,000 in last year’s outdoor meet and she followed that with first-place finishes in the cross country championships in November, and in the 5,000 and 3,000 in the indoor finals in early March.
She twice lowered the collegiate record in the indoor 5,000 — to a best of 14:52.79 — during that stretch and she also bettered the college best in the 10,000 by nearly 28 seconds when she ran 30:50.43 in April.
Those performances and the dominance she has displayed at the collegiate level have people wondering how she will fare in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials that will begin at Hayward Field on June 21. But she told Anderson on Thursday that she had not given much thought to that meet.
“I’m taking it day by day so today we’re focused on 25 laps,” she said. “Tomorrow we focus on napping all day and the next day we’re focused on 12½ laps.”
Valby’s victory in the 10,000 came not long after the conclusion of the long jump in which Gator teammates Claire Bryant, a senior, and Anthaya Charlton, a freshman, placed second and fourth with bests of 6.74 (22-1½) and 6.59 (21-7½).
Texas junior Ackelia Smith won her second consecutive outdoor title with a best of 6.79 (22-3½) and the Jamaican also had a leap of 6.77 (22-2½) in the competition in which Stanford sophomore Alyssa Jones placed third at 6.64 (21-9½).
Nebraska, which has a standout throws program, garnered 14 of its 22 points in the javelin as Cornhusker senior Rhema Otabor’s collegiate- and Bahamian-record throw of 64.19 (210-7) led a 1-5 finish in which junior teammate Eniko Sara from Canada registered a personal best of 55.66 (182-7).
Although Otabor was the defending champion in the javelin, she trailed Lianna Davidson of Texas A&M for the first four rounds of the event after the Aggie junior from Australia had raised her personal best to 60.70 (199-2) in the first round.
Otabor threw 56.34 (184-10) in the first round before posting marks of 56.58 (185-7), 56.56 (185-7), and 56.95 (186-10) on her next three attempts. She then put it all together on her fifth effort as her 64.19 (210-7) throw crushed her previous best of 60.54 (198-7) that she had set while finishing second in the Pan American Games last November, topped the collegiate record of 62.19 (204-1) that had been set by Maggie Malone of Texas A&M in 2016, and bettered the Bahamian record of 63.73 (209-1) that Laverne Eve had recorded in 2000.
It also moved her to fifth on the yearly world performer list.
Nebraska picked up another six points when junior Axelina Johansson from Sweden placed third in the shot put with a best of 18.24 (59-10¼) while finishing behind first-place Jaida Ross of Oregon at 19.57 (64-2½) and second-place Gabby Morris of Colorado State at 18.66 (61-2¾).
Ross, who had raised her collegiate record from 19.71 (64-8) to 20.01 (65-7¾) in the West Preliminary Round meet in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on May 23, had the six longest puts of the competition, including secondary puts of 19.14 (62-9½) and 19.09 (62-7¾).
The top three finishers in the women’s hammer throw all produced personal bests, topped by the 70.47 (231-2) effort of sophomore Elisabet Rut Runarsdottir of Texas State.
That effort topped the Icelandic record of 70.33 (230-9) that Runarsdottir had set in March and came in a competition in which she also had a throw of 70.00 (229-8).
Tara Simpson-Sullivan of Rice finished second at 69.94 (229-5), followed by fellow senior Jalani Davis of Mississippi at 69.84 (229-2).
Rutgers junior Chloe Timberg set a pair of personal bests while winning the pole vault at 4.71 (15-5½).
Senior Riley Ferts of Charlotte equaled her personal best when she finished second at 4.55 (14-11) and freshman — and NCAA indoor champion — Hana Moll of Washington placed third at 4.50 (14-9).
Timberg made eight heights during the competition as she cleared 4.15 (13-7¼) on her first attempt before doing likewise at 4.30 (14-1¼), 4.40 (14-5¼), 4.50 (14-9), 4.55 (14-11), and 4.60 (15-1).
She equaled her personal best from earlier this season when she made 4.60 and she bettered it when she cleared 4.65 (15-3) on her second attempt. She topped that bar two jumps later when she cleared 4.71 (15-5½) to move into a tie for third on the all-time collegiate performer list.
Timberg had missed her first attempt at 4.70 (15-5) before having the bar moved up by a centimeter after Felts had missed her final attempt of the competition after missing once at 4.60 and once at 4.65.
Timberg missed all three of her attempts at a collegiate-record height of 4.74 (15-6½).
McKenzie Long of Mississippi, and Arkansas teammates Rachel Glenn and Kaylyn Brown turned in the most noteworthy performances in the women’s semifinal races that were held in 11 events on Thursday.
Long, a senior, ran the second leg on a Mississippi squad that posted a yearly collegiate-leading time of 42.22 seconds in the 4 x 100 relay before posting personal bests of 10.91 in the 100 and 21.95 in the 200.
Mississippi’s time in the 400 relay made it the fifth-fastest school in collegiate history and Long’s time in the 100 moved her into a tie for 10th on the all-time collegiate performer list. However, her clocking in the 200 improved upon the yearly world best of 22.03 that she had set in the SEC meet on May 11 and moved her to third on the all-time collegiate list behind the 21.80 that Kentucky’s Abby Steiner ran while winning the 2022 NCAA title and the 21.91 effort that Julien Alfred of Texas produced in winning the Tom Jones Memorial Invitational last year.
Glenn, a sophomore, had tied the collegiate indoor record of 2.00 (6-6¾) in winning the high jump in the NCAA indoor meet in March, and she led qualifying in the 400 hurdles on Thursday when her time of 53.80 was her fourth personal best of the season and moved her to seventh on the all-time collegiate performer list.
She will attempt a unique double on Saturday as the high jump is scheduled to start at 5 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, and the 400 hurdles will begin at 6:57.
Brown, a freshman, posted the top qualifying time in the 400 on Thursday with a 49.82 clocking and the next three-fastest efforts were posted by Razorback teammates Nickisha Pryce at 49.87, Rosey Effiong at 50.42, and Amber Anning at 50.67.
Pryce and Anning won their semifinals, while Effiong finished second behind Pryce.
Today’s meet will start with the heats of the 100-meter hurdles in the heptathlon at 4 p.m., EDT.
The heptathlon high jump will start at 5 p.m., followed by the heptathlon shot put at 7.
The men’s high jump will start at 8:30 p.m., with the first championship track event, the men’s 4 x 100 relay, scheduled for 9:02.