Looking forward to second day of Mt. SAC
Garland determined to put sub-par events behind him from first day of decathlon
WALNUT, California - As he sat trackside in a large metal tub full of ice water on Wednesday evening, Kyle Garland of the University of Georgia was experiencing mixed emotions about his performance during the first day of the decathlon in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays.
He was pleased with his efforts in the first three events, the 100 meters, long jump, and shot put, but frustrated with his marks in the last two, the high jump and 400, in the meet at Hilmer Lodge Stadium.
“I started off pretty hot,” he said. “And then the last two events just didn’t go as planned, as I wanted them to. . . But I’ve come to learn over the years in the decathlon that one event doesn’t define who you are as an athlete. You can still turn it around. You can still bounce back and you can get better.”
This is not to say that Garland had a terrible day, as he will start the second day of the elite division competition with an overall score of 4,507 points, and a 36-point lead over fellow American Harrison Williams (4,471) in second place. Kendrick Thompson of the Bahamas is in third place after totaling 4,345 points.
However, Garland is competing in his first multi-event competition since the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Albuquerque, New Mexico on March 10-11, when he won the men’s heptathlon with a sparking 6,639-point score than was only six points shy of the world record set by Ashton Eaton of the U.S. in 2012.
To expect Garland to begin the outdoor season with a comparable performance in the decathlon might have been unreasonable, but he did come out of the gate quickly. His 10.56 clocking in the 100 was .12 seconds faster – and 28 points better – than the 10.68 he had run last May when he totaled a collegiate record of 8,720 points in the decathlon while finishing second in the USA Track & Field Combined Events Championships.
His best of 7.70 meters (25 feet 3¼ inches) in the long jump was shorter than he what he leaped in the USATF meet, but a 16.77 (55-0¼) effort in the shot put left him nine points ahead of the pace he had set during his collegiate record.
However, sub-par marks of 2.04 (6-8¼) in the high jump and 49.84 in the 400 left Garland in a 153-point hole in comparison to his collegiate-record performance.
Garland had a 199-point advantage over Williams after the high jump, but he lost 163 points of that lead when the 2021 Olympian posted the fastest time of the competition with a 46.47 clocking in the 400.
“My mind set for tomorrow is just to execute, to be aggressive,” Garland said. “I just need to keep my head locked in and keep myself energized. And I have to understand that there’s still five more events so whatever happened today, I need to put that on the back burner and move forward.”
Allie Jones of USC set personal bests in three of the heptathlon’s four events on Wednesday while totaling 3,779 points in the elite division competition. But fellow Americans Chari Hawkins (3,756) and Annie Kunz (3,727) were not far behind her, and Ida Eikeng of the University of Washington and Norway was in fourth place with 3,709 points.
Jones, who is working toward a Masters of Healthcare Administration at USC, placed fourth in the NCAA Championships for Stanford last June. She had totaled a personal best of 5,832 points while finishing second to Eikeng in the heptathlon in the Mt. SAC Relays last year, but it appeared that a score of more than 6,000 points was well within her grasp after Wednesday.
A 13.10-second clocking in the 100-meter hurdles gave Jones 1,109 points in the first event of the day and she followed that with marks of 1.74 (5-8½) in the high jump, 13.06 (42-10¼) in the shot put, and 23.43 in the 200.
Her 3,779-point total was 227 points better than what she had scored on the first day of the Mt. SAC Relays last year. But Hawkins, Kunz, and Eikeng are all expected to gain a lot of points on Jones in the javelin, which will be the second of the heptathlon’s final three events today.
Kunz, sixth in the Olympic Games in Tokyo, might be the most balanced second-day performer of the three competitors closest to Jones. She long jumped 6.50 (21-4), threw the javelin 45.06 (147-10), and ran the 800 in 2 minutes 15.24 seconds while concluding a winning — and personal-best — performance of 6,703 points in the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2021.
The meet will start at 10 a.m. on Thursday with heats of the 110-meter high hurdles in the college-open division decathlon, followed by heats of the high hurdles in the elite division decathlon at 11.
The second day of the elite division heptathlon will also start at 11 with the long jump.
The first of two days of the distance carnival races will begin at 5 p.m.
The women’s elite 3,000-meter steeplechase will start at 7 p.m., followed by the men’s steeplechase at 7:25.
The women’s invitational 10,000 meters will begin at 7:50, followed by the men’s at 8:30.