Week in Review: Decathlon U adds to its resume
Scantling and Garland continue Georgia’s rich tradition with 1-2 finish in national championships
The University of Georgia decathlon program, past and present, had a great weekend in the USA Track & Field Combined Events Championships at the University of Arkansas’ John McDonnell Field on Friday and Saturday.
Competing for one of three spots on the U.S. team that will take part in the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, from July 15-24, Georgia graduate Garrett Scantling totaled 8,867 points to turn back current Bulldog junior Kyle Garland (8,720) for the decathlon title.
Zach Ziemek finished third with a personal best of 8,573 points.
Scantling’s total moved him to seventh on the all-time world performer list and to third on the all-time U.S. list behind Ashton Eaton (9,045 in 2015) and Dan O’Brien (8,891 in 1992) while topping his previous best by 220 points.
Garland added 192 points to the collegiate record of 8,528 points set by Arkansas junior Ayden Owens-Delerme in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays on April 13-14 while moving to 16th on the all-time world performer list and to seventh on the all-time U.S. list.
He also obliterated his previous best of 8,196 points set in winning the Southeastern Conference title last year.
After finishing fourth in the Olympic Games in Tokyo last summer, the 28-year-old Scantling was the definitive pre-meet favorite. However, he revealed in an Instagram post afterward he had torn an abdominal muscle three weeks earlier and was unsure how he would fare in the qualifying meet for the national team that will compete in the first World outdoor title meet to be held on U.S. soil.
“3 weeks ago I had a grade III tear in my internal oblique,” he wrote. “I didn’t even know how this competition would go!”
Garland, 21, trailed Ziemek after running 10.68 seconds in the 100, the decathlon’s first event. But he took the lead after spanning a personal best of 7.86 meters (25 feet 9½ inches) in the long jump.
He followed that with marks of 16.44 (51-11¼) in the shot put, 2.16 (7-1) in the high jump, and 49.04 in the 400 to conclude the first day with a 4,660-4,503 lead over second-place Scantling.
Garland had been in second place after the first day of the U.S. Olympic Trials last year before finishing sixth, 507 points behind first-place Scantling in the final standings. This time around his performances were significantly better during the second day.
Scantling opened the competition Saturday by posting the top mark of 13.59 in the 110-meter high hurdles while Garland ran 13.71. He followed that with the second-best performance in the discus at 51.04 (167-5) to trail Garland (46.16/151-5) by only 40 points entering the pole vault.
Garland cleared a personal best of 4.85 (15-11) in that event, but Scantling scaled 5.15 (16-10¾) to gain 92 points on his rival and take a 52-point lead entering the javelin, in which his best throw of 67.16 (220-4) increased his lead to 166 points.
Garland was in the midst of such a breakthrough performance that his 8,060-point total after nine events was only 136 points shy of his previous best for all 10 events. He ran 4 minutes 43.21 seconds in the 1,500 to pick up 19 points on Scantling, but the former Bulldog was not to be denied.
Garland posted personal bests in five events and tied his personal best in another, but Scantling outscored him in five of the last six events to win his second consecutive national title.
Nonetheless, Garland was understandably proud of his performance and posted the following on Instagram: US Champs Recap: 8720 Collegiate Record 🎫 punched to Eugene, Oregon.
Scantling, who gave up the decathlon for three years after finishing fourth in the 2016 Olympic Trials, wrote the following about his fellow Bulldog to conclude his Instagram post: Also my boy @kgarl_18 with the Collegiate Record and MONSTER score. Carry on that tradition brotha See you in Eugene BABY!!!!!
Impressive list: In addition to Garland, Georgia has had four other decathletes who currently rank in the top 10 on the all-time collegiate performer list.
Those individuals are No. 4-ranked Karel Tilga, who totaled a then-collegiate record 8,484 points last year, No. 8 Maciel Uibo (8,356 in 2015), No. 9 Johannes Erm (8,352 in ‘19), and No. 10 Devon Williams (8,345 in ’17).
Tilga, Uibo, and Erm are Estonian. Williams is from the U.S.
Uibo, the 2019 World Championship silver medalist, is married to Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas, the two-time defending Olympic champion in the women’s 400 meters.
Scantling ranks 19th on the all-time collegiate performer list, with a best of 8,232 points from 2015.
Moving forward: Anna Hall of the University of Florida laid to rest a bad memory from last year’s Olympic Trials by winning the heptathlon in the USA Track & Field Combined Events Championships.
The Gator sophomore totaled a career best of 6,458 points to move to second on the all-time collegiate list and add 46 points to her yearly world leading score of 6,412 points she posted in winning the Texas Relays in March.
Hall, then a freshman at Georgia, sustained a broken navicular bone in her left foot and a torn deltoid muscle in the Olympic Trials last June after crashing to the track after clobbering the eighth of 10 hurdles in the 100-meter hurdles, the first of the heptathlon’s seven events.
She underwent surgery to help repair the broken bone and was not given clearance to start walking until October.
After previously deciding to transfer to Florida after Georgia Coach Petros Kyprianou announced last May that he would not be returning for the 2021-22 academic year, Hall won the pentathlon in the NCAA Indoor Championships in March to help the Gators win the team title. In addition to her two heptathlon victories this year, she has also run 55.35 in the 400 hurdles to rank second on the yearly collegiate list.
Hall was in fifth place – 144 points out of first – after the first three events of the heptathlon on Friday. But she took a 31-point lead over second-place Chari Hawkins after running to a personal best of 23.14 in the 200 to end the first day.
Her lead grew to 163 points after she leaped 6.39 (20-11¾) in the long jump to start the second day. That advantage was cut to 61 points after she threw the javelin 38.44 (126-1), but it grew to its final 274 points over runner-up Ashtin Mahler after Hall stormed to a 2:03.11 clocking in the 800, the fastest time ever recorded by a collegiate heptathlete.
Hall began an Instagram post by writing “WE’RE GOING TO THE WORLDS!!! 🥳🇺🇸🥇 the combined events are a team sport… and i could not be more thankful for my ‘team’ (both here and at home) !!”
She ended that post by writing “see you guys in oregon for the first ever world champs on american soil 🤩”
What’s next? It’s possible Garland and Hall will bypass the decathlon and heptathlon in the NCAA championships from June 8-11 in order to be as fresh as possible for the World Championships.
If Garland chooses to compete in individual events in the NCAA meet, his best chances of scoring points for Georgia – with a top-eight finish – would appear to be in the men’s 110 high hurdles, long jump or high jump.
In comparison, Hall could conceivably score points for Florida in the 100 hurdles or 400 hurdles, as well as in the high jump or long jump.
In addition, you have to wonder how fast she could run in the 800 if she only competed in that event. For comparison, Brooke Fazio of Richmond ran 2:02.97 to finish eighth in the 800 in the NCAA meet last year and Claire Seymour of BYU placed fourth in 2:01.91.
Big win: Reported stomach issues caused Olympic 100-meter champion Marcell Jacobs of Italy to withdraw from the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi on Saturday, but that should not diminish the significance of Ferdinand Omanyala’s victory over a field that included Fred Kerley.
The 26-year-old Kenyan had run an African record of 9.77 to finish second to American Trayvon Bromell (9.76) in the Keino meet last September, but there were plenty of people – including yours truly – who attributed much of that time to the fact that it was run in Nairobi, where the elevation of 1,795 meters (5,900 feet) aids performances in the sprints, hurdles, and jumps.
On Saturday, Omanyala led the field out of the blocks and never relinquished the lead.
Olympic silver medalist Kerley reduced his deficit to its smallest margin about 60 meters into the race, but Omanyala pulled away from him after that to record a 9.85 to 9.92 victory. The time was the fastest in the world this year.
Winning a race before a partisan home crowd in early May is not the same thing as contending for a medal in the World Championships in July, but it has to be a big confidence boost for Omanyala, who was eliminated in the semifinals in the Olympics and was not ranked among the top 10 100-meter sprinters in the world by Track & Field News last year.
Lightning quick season opener: Altitude aside, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce’s 10.67 clocking to win the women’s 100 in the Keino Classic was eye-opening as it was the third-fastest of the Jamaican’s career, tied for the 12th-fastest ever run, and came in her first century race of the season.
The Olympic silver medalist from last year got off to her typical great start and had a huge margin of victory as Bassant Hemida finished second in an Egyptian record of 11.02.
Christine Mboma, the Olympic silver medalist in the 200, had lowered the Namibian record to 10.97 in the 100 the previous week, but she did not finish after pulling up with an apparent hamstring injury about 55-60 meters into the race.
I was disappointed, but not surprised, when some posts on social media claimed Mboma could have beaten Fraser-Pryce had she not sustained the injury.
You have to wonder if the folks who made those claims saw video of the race, as Fraser-Pryce had a large lead and was motoring away from everyone in the field when Mboma pulled up.
World leaders galore: Fraser-Pryce and Omanyala were two of seven athletes who turned in yearly world-leading performances in the Keino Classic.
In men’s competition, Abel Kipsang of Kenya won the 1,500 in a world-leading 3:31.01 and Wojciech Nowicki of Poland threw a world-leading 81.43 (267-2) in the hammer.
On the women’s side, other world-leading marks were produced by Diribe Welteji of Ethiopia in the 1,500 (4:01.50), Norah Jeruto of Kazakhstan in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (9:04.95), and Girmawit Gebrzihair of Ethiopia in the 5,000 (14:49.97).
Olympic hammer champion Nowicki unleashed his top throw on his sixth – and final – effort. He also had throws of 80.10 (262-9) in the second round, 80.45 (263-11) in the fourth, and 80.15 (262-11) in the fifth.
Kipsang’s performance was particularly impressive as it came at an elevation which typically hinders times at distances of 800 meters or longer.
Countryman Jacob Krop also turned in a notable winning effort in the men’s 5,000 when he ran 13:12.19 in a race in which the top three finishers – all Kenyans – ran under 13:15.
Speedy finish: Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway put up some impressive closing splits on his way to a yearly world-leading time of 13:02.03 in the men’s 5,000 meters in the Sound Running Track Meet at Serra High School in San Juan Capistrano, California, on Friday.
The Olympic 1,500 champion ran his last lap in 55.63 seconds, his final 800 in 1:55.86, and his last 1,600 in 4:02.46.
The next four finishers posted personal bests as Mohamed Mohumed of Germany placed second in 13:03.18, followed by American Joe Klecker (13:04.42), and the Northern Arizona University sophomore duo of Abdihamid Nur (13:06.32) and Nico Young (13:11.30).
Mohumed moved to second on the all-time German performer list behind Dieter Bauman, who ran 12:54.70 in 1997.
Nur broke the collegiate record – and former world record – of 13:08.4 set by Henry Rono of Washington State and Kenya in 1978, and Young moved to third on the all-time collegiate list with his performance.
Rono’s 13:08.4 clocking, which came in a triangular meet against Arizona State and host UC Berkeley on April 8, 1978, was the first of four world records he set during a magical year.
The other records came in the steeplechase, when he ran 8:05.4 in the Northwest Relays in Seattle on May 13; the 10,000, when he timed 27:22.5 in Vienna on June 11; and the 3,000, when he clocked 7:32.1 in Oslo on June 27.
Family affair: The Sound Running Track Meet was extra memorable for Nico Young as Lex Young, one of his twin brothers, had moved to second on the all-time U.S. high school list in the 5,000 when he ran 13:43.95 to place fifth in a men’s race that started 40 minutes before Nico ran.
Lex Young, a junior at Newbury Park High School in Southern California, is one of the leaders of a boys’ distance program that is regarded as the greatest in U.S. history.
Last year, Newbury Park became the first high school ever in the U.S. to have four runners break 4:10 in the mile in the same year, as well as have four individuals run 3,200-meter times that were equivalent to a sub-9-minute two-mile.
This year, the Panthers have had four runners run 4:05.00 or faster in the mile, and their top five runners have clocked 8:52.19 or faster for 3,200 meters. Another has timed 9:02.27.
“It was a very special night for the both of us!,” Nico wrote in a text. “It was awesome to see him race and run so well right before I raced.”
More notable times: Senior Colin Sahlman of Newbury Park High and junior Tyrone Gorze of Crater High in Central Point, Oregon, were two other prep runners who performed extremely well in the Sound Running Track Meet.
The Northern Arizona-bound Sahlman ran 3:39.59 to place third in a heat of the 1,500 and move to fourth on the all-time U.S. high school performer list.
Gorze ran 14:00.34 to finish 13th in the same race in which Lex Young placed fifth in 13:43.95.
Sahlman and Young decided last month to bypass the upcoming section and state championships in California in order to run in races that will give them the best opportunities to produce fast times.
U.S. leading mark: Cooper Teare rolled to a runaway victory in the men’s 1,500 meters in the Oregon Twilight Meet at Hayward Field on Friday.
The NCAA champion in the 5,000 for Oregon last year, Teare ran his final lap in 56.29 after clocking 1:40.48 for 700 meters and 2:38.53 (58.04) for 1,100.
Teare’s time was the third-fastest in the world this year until Saturday when it fell to fourth after Kipsang ran his world-leading 3:31.01 in the Keino Classic.
Notable season opener: Michael Norman had the top performance in the Seiko Grand Prix Meet in Tokyo on Sunday.
The fifth-place finisher in the Olympic Games won the men’s 400 in 44.62 in his first one-lap race of the season.
Olympic silver medalist Rai Benjamin placed first in the men’s 400 intermediate hurdles in 48.60 in his season-opening race in that event.
Other winners included 2019 World champion Christian Coleman in the men’s 100 (10.09) and Olympic silver medalist Kendra Harrison in the women’s 100 hurdles (12.76).
Another season opener: Allyson Felix finished fourth in the women’s 400 in 52.23 in the Orange County Classic at Serra High School in San Juan Capistrano, California, on Saturday.
It was the first 400 of the year for Felix, the bronze medalist in the Olympic Games. She had previously run a leg on a victorious 1,600 relay team in the Mt. SAC Relays on April 16 and won the 200 in 22.40 in the South Carolina Invitational a week later.
In remembrance: Kenny Moore, a two-time Olympian in the men’s marathon and a former longtime writer for Sports Illustrated, passed away at his home in Kailua, Hawaii, on May 4. He was 78.
Moore finished 14th in the marathon in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City and fourth in the 1972 Games in Munich. He was part of a U.S. trio that included winner Frank Shorter, the first American to win the Olympic marathon since 1908, and ninth-place Jack Bachelor.
At that time, it was the best three-runner finish any country had achieved in an Olympic marathon since the Games had begun limiting countries to three entries.
Moore was a three-time all-American at the University of Oregon and graduated from the school in 1966 with an undergraduate degree in Philosophy. He went on to win the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco six consecutive times from 1968-73.
He also placed second in a personal best of 2 hours 11 minutes 36 seconds in the 1970 Fukuoka Marathon, then regarded as the best marathon in the world.
Moore began writing for SI in the early 1970s and worked for the magazine for 25 years. From 1980-82, he worked as a consultant for the movie, Personal Best. He also had an acting role in the film about women’s track and field.
In addition, he was a co-writer for the film, Without Limits, that was released in 1998. The movie was about charismatic and rebellious U.S. distance runner Steve Prefontaine, who was 24 when he died in a single car crash in Eugene, Oregon, in 1975, while holding the American record in the 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000 meters, as well as in the two-mile, three-mile, and six-mile.