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University of Georgia Track and Field
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil --- Former Georgia track and field champion Shaunae Miller blazed to a personal-best time in the 400-meter dash and captured the gold medal in thrilling fashion at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on Monday. Miller, a native of the Bahamas, edged Team USA’s Allyson Felix by .07 seconds by diving across the finish line. Miller’s personal record of 49.44 topped her previous personal best of 49.55, which was the world-leading time this year, clocked earlier this summer. Felix finished just ahead of Miller in the semifinal round on Sunday. Miller, who won the 2013 NCAA indoor title and was second at the national outdoor meet that year, came into the Games with two of the world’s top three 400m times this year. This is Miller’s second straight trip to the Olympics after she advanced in 2012 while still in high school. That year, she only competed in the qualifying round.
This is the Bulldogs’ first track and field medal of the Games and 13th in history. It is the first for the Lady Bulldogs since Hyleas Fountain won the silver medal in the heptathlon in 2008. A fellow native of the Bahamas, five-time Olympian Debbie Ferguson, was the last current or former competitor from the Georgia women’s team to win a gold medal (4x100m relay, 2000).
Shaunae Miller Wins Olympic Gold
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By John Frierson UGAAA Staff Writer If you watched the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro earlier this month, especially swimming and track and field, you undoubtedly saw current and former Georgia athletes in action. In all, there were 37 Georgia athletes and coaches in Rio. Some won gold medals, some silver or bronze. Some put up personal best marks or made history for their country, while others didn't perform quite as well as they'd have liked. But they all experienced something special and unforgettable. After talking with several Bulldog Olympians, all first-timers, as well as a pair of Georgia coaches that were on staffs in Rio, here are some of their memorable moments from the Games: Opening Ceremonies Georgia swimming coach Jack Bauerle is no Olympic rookie, having coached for the United States in three Games, including as the head coach of the women's team in Beijing in 2008. The opening ceremonies are special every time, he said. Bauerle: "It's exceptional and it cannot be overstated, the feeling of that and what it does for you. Immediately as you walk in it makes you thankful for everyone that helped put you there. I called (former Georgia athletic director Vince Dooley, the man who hired him in 1979) right from outside the stadium, right before, to thank him again, and I've done that each time. It hits
Rio Olympics an Unforgettable Experience
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you hard and it makes you extremely thankful for those that had a part in you being in that place." Before the start of the ceremony Bauerle got a bit of a surprise in his room at the Olympic Village, when U.S. men's basketball players Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green, all of the Golden State Warriors, walked in. Bauerle: "They were coming over to change for the opening ceremonies and they mistakenly walked into our room. It was a small living room area to begin with and it got a lot smaller with those three big guys in it." On the other end of the spectrum from Bauerle was Georgia's 20-year-old triple jumper Keturah Orji, already a three-time NCAA champion and the American record holder in the event. This was Orji's first Olympics and first opening ceremonies. Orji: "I feel like it was like a dream, kind of. When you walk into the stadium, all the countries are surrounding you, there are dancers all around, it's big and lit up and there are fireworks -- there was just a lot of excitement." Being around the likes of the U.S. men's basketball team of NBA stars and tennis legend Serena Williams was a new experience. Orji: "It was kind of hard to be like, `I'm one of them, too,' but I was in my head thinking, `This is pretty cool.'" Like Orji, heptathlete Kendell Williams, a two-time NCAA champion, was blown away by what she saw and felt. Williams: "It was a great feeling and I felt so honored to be there and to be a part of it. ... It's almost like if you're here at a Georgia game and the football team runs out on to the field before the kickoff. It was that kind of energy and enthusiasm and it was that loud, too. It was cool, all the attention is focused on you at that moment." Because of how United States is translated into Portuguese, Estados Unidos, Team USA made its way into the Olympic Stadium right in front of the Estonian team, which featured Georgia decathletes Maicel Uibo and Karl Saluri. Saluri: "The fun fact for me was that we were both behind the NBA basketball guys. I'm a huge NBA fan, so just to be able to see them right in front of us ... was great. ... I guess that was the first time when I felt like, whoa, this is actually a pretty big deal. Before, when I was at home, right before I left for Rio, it was like whatever, like every other meet. But to see all those people, you are with the world's best athletes." The Games Begin It didn't take long for Georgia's swimmers to make their presence felt in Rio. On the first night of competition, Chase Kalisz earned a silver medal in the 400-meter individual medley. In addition, as swimmers in the preliminaries of the women's 4x100 freestyle relay, former Dogs Allison Schmitt and Amanda Weir earned silver medals after the U.S. placed second in the final. The Canadian squad, featuring Georgia's Chantal Van Landeghem, earned the bronze in the relay. That was the start of a stellar week of racing by Bulldogs, which ended with four gold medals, two silver and two bronze. Bauerle was an assistant coach on the men's staff and couldn't have been more proud of what his current and former swimmers achieved, whether they earned a medal or not. Bauerle: "We had so many Georgia athletes, and a few that weren't supposed to be there, weren't expected to make the U.S. team, that made it so spectacular and also personally satisfying. ... Everybody was just knocking it out and making a final -- it was incredible, really." While the swimmers were busy competing during that first week, the track and field athletes had to wait for their turn, in the second week. That left them with a lot of time to train, but also time to experience being at the Games.
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Saluri said he attended three of the U.S. men's basketball team's games, while Orji and Williams, who were roommates at the Olympic Village, also got out to see a lot of different events. Williams: "The two weeks we were there we were kind of connected at the hip, of course, and just kind of experiencing everything together, and that was really cool." Williams and Georgia track and field head coach Petros Kyprianou, an assistant on the Estonian team, watched some women's weightlifting together. She went to watch Canada and former Gymdog Brittany Rogers in gymnastics and joined up with former Georgia high jumper Leontia Kallenou of Cyprus to watch some water polo. Williams: "(The water polo) was actually very interesting because neither of us had seen it, so it was cool to watch them and watch a different sport." Uibo, the two-time NCAA champion in the decathlon, opted for a more low-key Olympics. Uibo: "It was just training and chilling and trying to rest. ... I actually didn't see any other events at all. Just tried to rest up." Orji Betters Her Record After a long wait, Orji put on a strong showing in the triple jump -- after barely making the final. In the preliminaries, she scratched on two of her jumps and her one clean jump earned her the 12th and final spot in the finals. She made good on that, bettering her own American record with a jump of 48 feet, 3 1/4 inches. That mark was good enough to be in the top three for much of the finals but in the end she placed fourth, narrowly missing out on a bronze medal. Orji: "I didn't mind that I got fourth. A lot of people were like, `Oh, were you upset?' Not really. That was my goal, to go there and (set a new personal best), and that's what I did, and I'm really happy with the way I performed." Williams was like an anxious parent watching her roommate and good friend compete. Williams: "That was awesome. I was definitely on the edge of my seat on prelim day. I knew that she was going to take a moment to relax and come back on finals day and put something really big together -- and that's what she did. It was crazy though because she jumped the big jump and was in first for a while and then she moved to second and then third and I was biting my nails." A Very Busy Petros Kyprianou had some time to take in other events but he was mostly very busy working not only with the Estonian track and field athletes, including Uibo and Saluri, but also he was coaching Williams, Orji, Kallenou and former Georgia high jumper Levern Spencer of St. Lucia. Kyprianou: "You have a lot of coaches from around the world that I know and we're friends, and one day they see me with the Estonian shirt and the next day with the U.S. shirt and the third day I'm over with the Cyprus people and St. Lucia and all that. It was fun -- I was the center of joking for a little bit, but it was fun." Diving For Gold While Uibo might not have gotten out much, he did have a very special moment once the track and field began. Uibo is engaged to former Georgia 400-meter star Shaunae Miller and he was in Olympic Stadium, watching intently, as Miller, from the Bahamas, now famously dove across the finish line to win gold, narrowly edging American star Allyson Felix. Uibo: "That was probably the best moment during Rio, seeing my fiancé win the gold medal." Hard to top that, or any of the other countless experiences these Bulldogs had in Rio while competing on their sports' biggest stage.
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Senior Kendell Williams scored 6,221 points to finish 17th in the Heptathlon in Rio. The 2x NCAA Champion was only 4 points behind her 2016 NCAA Championship score.
From Marietta, Ga, Williams wrapped up her competition with the second-best 800m of her career, 2:16.24. She ran her best at the U.S. Trials, for a total score of 6,402, a new school record.
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Rising junior, Keturah Orji shattered her own American record of 47-8 in the triple jump finals. Orji finished fourth in her first Olympic trip with a mark of 48 feet, 3 ¼ inches. Orji also became the first American to qualify for the women’s triple jump final.
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Levern Spencer finished sixth in the Women’s High Jump Final. The St. Lucian native became the first athlete from her country to make it to a final, this is her third Olympic Games.
Former and current members of the Track and Field team pose with Head Coach Petros Kyprianou before returning to the United States.
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Saluri finished the Olympic Decathlon competition in 23rd place with a score of 7,223 points.
Rising junior Karl Saluri competes alongside Lindon Victor and Ashton Eaton in the 100m dash. Saluri posted a time of 10.82 for a score of 901 points.
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Uibo cleard a height of 7 feet for a score of 925 points.
Rising junior Karl Saluri competes alongside Lindon Victor and Ashton Eaton in the 100m dash. Saluri posted a time of 10.82 for a score of 901 points.
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Bulldog volunteer coach and former distance signee Jarryd Wallace competed in his second Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro a month after the Olympics left town. In the first round of the 100-meter dash (T-43/44), Wallace finished second in his heat to advance with an 11.02. He then took fifth in the finals after clocking an 11.16. Wallace also joined three other Team USA sprinters in the 4x100m relay final. While the foursome crossed the finish line first with a world record time of 40.61, Wallace and his teammates were disqualified for making an error in one of their exchanges. Because of the disqualification, Wallace’s 4x100m team from 2013 still owns the world record in the relay of 40.73. Wallace also competed for Team USA team in the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. He ran in the 400m, finishing sixth, and was part of the 4x100m relay. Wallace earned a gold medal at the 2015 ParaPan American Games in Toronto when he ran a then world record time of 10.71. Wallace, a former state-ranked athlete in both track and tennis at Oconee County High School, signed a track scholarship with the Bulldogs in 2007. However, due to compartment syndrome in his right leg and subsequent surgeries, he was never able to compete. In February of 2010, he made the decision to have his leg amputated with the goal of not just being able to run again but to compete one day as a Paralympian.
He is the son of Jeff and Sabina Wallace. Jeff is the head women's tennis coach at UGA while Sabina is a former All-SEC distance runner for the Bulldogs.
Wallace Ends Season in Rio for Team USA
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Cross Country Sweeps Season Opener
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BISHOP, Ga. --- Both Georgia teams put four in the top five individual finishers to complete the sweep of the UGA Cross Country Invitational in Bishop, Ga., on Saturday morning. "Today was a great day," said Bulldog cross country coach Patrick Cunniff. "First of all, it was exciting to be out here to see the benefit of our hard work and to run in front of family and friends. To see the support by the track team and the rest of the community is awesome. The kids kind of seized that moment." Junior Bryan Kamau picked up a three-second victory in the men's 8K (8000 meters) as the Bulldogs topped Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State in Division I dual meets. Georgia runners also crossed the line in third, fourth, fifth and eighth place to round out its scorers. "Our men had a really strong effort today to see the three guys - Bryan Kamau, Sid Vaughn and Austin Sprague - up there working together, looking strong and comfortable," said Cunniff. "And then they finished well with Bryan getting the victory, which is a good start for our team. We have some other guys that will join and end up running for us a little later and we think that will give us a very strong team. "I am very happy how both teams took advantage of the conditions and how they executed the race. We had a really positive feeling coming out of the race." On the women's side, true freshman Jessica Drop opened her collegiate career with a win in the 5K (5000m) and the Georgia women blew past both the Yellow Jackets and the Owls on the course that wraps around the UGA Equestrian Complex. The Lady Bulldogs also had the second, fourth, fifth and ninth finishers in the second and final race of the day. "Jessica Drop, Sam Drop and Yanely Gomez are three freshmen in the top five, and that is promising," said Cunniff. "Those three along with Morgan Ainslie have really jump-started the energy in our program and that's great to see. We are looking forward to the development of this group this year." Kamau, senior captain Sid Vaughn and junior transfer Austin Sprague started the opening race in the front pack and stayed there through the finish line. Georgia Tech's Solomon surged ahead of
the pack on the final loop. However, Kamau kicked past his former teammate at Shiloh in the final 200 meters to pick up the win in 25:12.42 while Solomon was second. "Coming into the race, the goal was to stay in a pack as much as possible and I believe we did that," Kamau said, who tallied his first collegiate cross
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win. "Our plan was to go steady for three miles and pick it up those last two. We did exactly that with Austin (Sprague) and Sid (Vaughn) just pushing and hanging on in there. I saw my high school teammate Nahom (Solomon from Georgia Tech) make that big move and I thought `just stay right there, it is almost over and kept pushing through the pain'. And I'm blessed to say I finished and won." Vaughn, a fifth-year senior for the Bulldogs, finished less than a second behind Solomon for third place with a 25:15.76. Making his debut for Georgia, Sprague ran a 25:20.26 for fourth as the third Georgia finisher. Junior Eric Westog returned in his 2016 opener to be fifth overall (25:43.12) after scoring to end the season at last year's NCAA South Regional. Drop, junior Morgan Ainslie, Kennesaw State's Kidan Kidane and freshmen Yanely Gomez and Sam Drop shot out from the start line of the women's race and stayed in the lead pack until the final lap. Drop then pulled away during her first action in the Red and Black and clocked a 17:43.70 for the win. "It felt like a relief when I crossed the finish line first, like I got the first one done," said Drop. "It was a win so this is the first step in a long journey. I can only get better from here. I have some goals that I want to achieve and I think this is the first step to reaching them. I think the team did amazing. Our freshmen did really well, we had three in the top five for the team. I think this just shows the strength of our team moving forward." Ainslie, who is this year's captain for the women's team, managed to stay second behind Jessica Drop after registering a time of 17:47.94. While Kidane bridged the gap in the lead pack with a third-place finish, Gomez ran an 18:14.27 to finish fourth in her first collegiate meet.
Jessica Drop's twin sister, Sam Drop, was fifth overall and the fourth Georgia finisher after completing the course in 18:17.34. Junior Laurel Sumner also broke into the top 10 with a ninth-
place finish (18:35.58) to be the Lady Bulldogs' final scorer.
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Georgia true freshman Jessica Drop has been named the Southeastern Conference Women’s Freshman Runner of the Week following her performance at UGA Cross Country Invitational, according to a league announcement. Drop, a native of Durham, Conn., opened her collegiate career by winning her team’s only 2016 home meet by four seconds. Her finish led the Lady Bulldogs to dual meet wins versus both Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State on the 5K course that wraps around the UGA Equestrian Complex in Bishop, Ga. Drop, whose twin sister, Sam, finished fifth overall, shot out into the lead from the start line and never relinquished it on the way to a 17:43.70 finish. The Drop sisters and Yanely Gomez gave the Georgia women three true freshmen finishers in their top-five scorers.
Drop named SEC Freshman of the Week
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. --- The Bulldog men's cross country team finished second in a 23-team field to highlight the Commodore Classic in Nashville, Tenn., on Saturday morning at the Vaughn Gap course. Georgia had three individual finishers in the top 12 and scored 81 points in the 8K race to Middle Tennessee State's 63. The Bulldogs topped nationally ranked Louisville and passed Auburn, who carried a better ranking in the South Region coming into the weekend, in the team standings on Saturday. Following an hour delay after the men's race, the Lady Bulldogs took 10th with 292 points in their 5K showdown while Eastern Michigan (68) edged Ohio State (87) for the team victory. Lady Bulldog true freshmen Jessica and Sam Drop led the way with top-20 individual finishes. "I was really excited and pleased with our teams' performances today," said Georgia distance coach Patrick Cunniff. "They competed hard and continued that style throughout both races. The men did an awesome job of completing the race plan and finishing strong. And the women kept focus despite the weather delay and during the rain and also ran well." Junior Bryan Kamau led the Georgia men for the second consecutive meet in 2016 with a season-best time of 24:42.7 for sixth place. His new teammate, junior Austin Sprague, finished one spot behind Kamau with a 24:43.5. This marks Sprague's second meet as a Bulldog after transferring from Furman. Senior Sid Vaughn posted the team's third season-best time of the year after completing the course in 24:57.0 for 12th place. The fourth and fifth scorers for the Bulldogs finished in 29th and 30th. Junior Daniel Navarro made his official season debut in a Georgia uniform and clocked a 25:31.7 to finish ahead of fellow junior Eric Westog. Westog scored for the second consecutive
Men Impress at Commodore Classic
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week after running a 25:33.1. "I was really happy with the top three guys who worked together and kept moving up," said Cunniff, who also had senior Morgan Malanoski finish 39th to be the sixth finisher. "The next three of our guys were also solid, they raced in their group and followed the plan." On the women's side, Jessica Drop, who won the season-opening UGA Cross Country Invitational in her first collegiate action, finished eighth overall with a season-best time of 17:15.9. Her twin sister, Sam, managed a 20th-place finish after registering a massive personal-best time of 17:39.6 to be the second Georgia finisher. Redshirt sophomore Hailey Branch was the next Lady Bulldog across the line to score for the first time with an 18:32.8 for 90th place. Junior Bre Ragsdale, who joined the squad this offseason, scored for the first time in her career taking 96th (18:35.4). Finishing 100th was junior Morgan Green, who scored for the first time after running an 18:37.3. "I thought the Drop sisters responded well to a higher level of competition," said Cunniff. "Jessica, as well as her sister, is forming a great foundation for this program and for this season. Hailey Branch also ran one of the best races of her career and hopefully this is something we can build on."
The Bulldogs return to action at the Paul Short Run versus some of the nation's top talent on October 1 in Bethlehem, Pa.
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Orji Wins Fan Vote for Bowerman
Georgia sophomore Keturah Orji has won the 2016 fan vote for The Bowerman Award in a landslide fashion. From June 24 to July 1, Orji landed 9,263 votes for 44.8 percent of the vote between the three women’s finalists. The Mount Olive, N.J., native’s tally was 1,464 votes more than any of the other women’s or men’s finalists as former Arkansas standout Jarrion Lawson won the men’s vote with 7,799 votes. Orji earns a first-place vote for The Bowerman Award with this victory, which is good for three points in the 3-2-1 voting format. This is the first time since the inception of the fan vote in 2009 that a female student-athlete from the Southeastern Conference earned the overwhelming support of the general public. Three men who won The Bowerman Award fan vote hoisted the 35-pound trophy while three women did the same. The Bowerman voters will receive ballots listing each of the finalists and must rank them by first, second and third choice. First-place votes will receive three points, second place will notch two and third will receive one point. The finalist with the highest point total will be declared the winner. The Bowerman voters consist of an 11-member advisory board, select media personnel, statisticians and collegiate administrators along with the 14 winners on the men’s and women’s side since the award’s inception in 2009.
Winners of The Bowerman Award will be announced in December at the annual U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Convention in Orlando, Fla. This year’s
convention will be held at the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes Resort and Spa.
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ATHENS, Ga. --- The Bulldog women’s track and field teams has added four elite spring signees, according to an announcement from head coach Petros Kyprianou. Highlighted by the Monday signing of long jumper Kate Hall, Kyprianou and his coaching staff also inked Norwegian thrower Beatrice Llano, German heptathlete Louisa Grauvogel and distance runner Virginia Moore, who is an Albany, Ga., native. “This is a great day to be a Georgia Bulldog and I am a proud head coach to announce these ladies signing to our team,” Kyprianou said. “The quality of their athletic ability, performances and character is second to none. “Kate Hall is, in my opinion, the best available American long jumper with an Olympic standard already under her belt. Louisa represents the great German tradition of outstanding heptathletes with a score that would be an American Junior record, if she were from the States. Beatrice brings Olympic caliber hammer throwing to Athens. Every time you add a 68-meter (223-foot) hammer thrower on your team as a 17-year-old, a 22-foot long jumper and a 5,740-point heptathlete, you know your program is headed in the right direction. Virginia Moore is our lone signee on the track and represents the great state of Georgia. Virginia has dominated the GISA level and we look forward to her latching on to our training and improving each year at Georgia. She will immediately add depth and quality to our cross country teams. There will be more of these to come in the near future.” Hall, a Maine native who was homeschooled and competed for Lake Region High School, is transferring to Georgia after spending her first year at Iowa State (she is redshirting the outdoor season). Hall set the U.S. high school long jump record, topping a 39-year-old mark, as well as the American Junior record with a mark of 22-5 to win the 2015 New Balance Nationals in Greensboro, N.C. This soared past the 2016 Olympic automatic qualifying mark of 21-11 and was a foot and a half longer than her winning jump at last year’s high school indoor national championship. Hall completed her prep career with six New England titles, four New England records and two national meet records. In 2016, Hall finished 12th in the long jump (20-1) at the NCAA Indoor Championships for Second Team All-America honors and also qualified for Nationals in the 60-meter dash for the Cyclones (chose to focus on long jump). Llano, a native of Bergen, Norway, has a personal-best hammer throw (4kg) of 220-8. In 2015, Llano earned Silver medal honors at the European Juniors in Eskilstuna, Sweden. She also set the Norwegian Junior national record in 2014 and then won the 2015 European Cup (U-23) Winter Championships. In addition, Llano has placed in the top five at both the World Junior Championships and the World Youth Championships. Grauvogel, a native of Saarbrucken/Saarland, Germany, has scored 5,741 points in the heptathlon during her career and 3,860 in the pentathlon. She has won Bronze medals at both
Spring Signees highlight ‘Second to None’ Signing Class
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the European Junior Championships and the World Youth Championships and has been a finalist at the World Junior Championships. Moore, a student at Deerfield-Windsor in Albany, is the defending
GISA cross country individual champion and helped lead Deerfield to
the team title. She won the 2015 3200m (12:00.34) state track crown by
16 seconds and was second to her future Lady Bulldog teammate
Ruthie Powell in the 1600m as well as the 800m. In fact, Moore has 11
top-five finishes at the state cross and track meets combined in her
career. Moore has won region titles in the 800m, 1600m and 3200m
every year of high school. She has posted personal-best times of 59
seconds (400m), 2:20 (800m), 5:16 (1600m) and 19:17 (5k).
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EUGENE, Ore. --- The Georgia women matched their best finale in history with a third-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships thanks in part to two national titles and a runner-up finish in Eugene, Ore., on Saturday. The Lady Bulldogs scored 41 points to finish third in the team race behind Arkansas (72) and Oregon (62). This matched the Georgia women’s finish at the 1995 NCAA Outdoor Championships and gives UGA three top-five finishes in a row at the meet. The UGA women also came within .3 points of equaling their top score of all-time. The men’s events wrapped up on Friday and the Bulldogs tied for 29th with eight points. Senior Chanice Porter started the scoring for the Lady Bulldogs by capturing the NCAA long jump title on Thursday with a school record on the final attempt of her collegiate career. Then, sophomore Keturah Orji won her second consecutive outdoor triple jump crown in historical fashion with a mark of 47 feet, 8 inches, junior Kendell Williams scored a career-best total (6,225) to win the second NCAA heptathlon title of her career (fifth NCAA title overall) and sophomore Mady Fagan made the best out of her first national outdoor meet with a runner-up finish in the high jump (6-0.75) on Saturday. “If someone would have told me (on Friday) that we would pull this third-place finish off, I would have been laughing,” said Bulldog head coach Petros Kyprianou. “Four girls showed up for us big-time, and a fifth was just out of scoring. Our scoring was kind of like gymnastics today with a 10, a 10, a 10 and eight and all of the sudden, we were up there. I am really proud of our whole crew. “For Kendell to have five NCAA titles at this point in her career is crazy, and the way she won it made me very proud. Keturah again improved on her collegiate record that was about two feet shorter at the beginning of the year. I don’t know what else to say about her performances. A meet like this doesn’t come around very often and we are going to try and build for future from this one. One person who really made a difference was Mady with eight big points. She kind of came from nowhere after jumping 5-5 last year. I think she is next big thing in the NCAA in the
Women Finish 3rd at NCAA Championships
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high jump.” Orji (pronounced OR-g, like the letter ‘g’), a native of Mount Olive, N.J., sailed 47-8 with a wind-legal 1.2 meters/second on her fifth of six jumps in the triple jump. Four of Orji’s six attempts would have clinched the title. Her best jump topped her own collegiate of 46-10.75 set at the NCAA East Prelims in late May. Her effort on Saturday also passed Nike’s Tiombe Hurd’s American record of 47-5 set in 2004. Orji is now 8-0 through two collegiate outdoor seasons in the triple jump. She has won the last three NCAA titles after sweeping the indoor and outdoor championships this year and also capturing the collegiate championship at the 2015 meet in Eugene. The win in the triple jump made Orji the team’s top scorer after she also scored three points with a sixth-place finish in the long jump on Thursday. Williams, a native of Marietta, Ga., equaled her finish at this meet when she was a true freshman in 2014 and surpassed her school record score of 6,223 tallied to finish second last year. Williams’ heptathlon title is the third for Georgia in history and 18th overall outdoors since the team’s first in 1987. This year, Williams used three personal records, including a collegiate record in the 60-meter hurdles on Friday, to power her national championship run. Similar to her shot put on Friday, Williams started the heptathlon’s fifth event, the long jump, with a foul. She then traveled 19-4.25 on her second try before improving to 20-1.50. This effort scored Williams 890 points and put her in second place by 216 points. Williams lifted her opening try in the javelin a combined events personal-best distance of 132-3 to score 673 points. With her eighth-place finish in the event after her next two events were not improvements, Williams closed within 106 points of Jones. Going into the seventh and final event, Williams needed to beat Jones by eight seconds or more in the 800m to clinch her championship. After Jones set the tone by taking a lead through the first lap, Williams moved into the front pack and finished fourth overall with a personal-best time of 2:17.89. This time bested Jones’ finish by 22 seconds to clinch Williams’ second title in three years and third finish in the top two. An additional eight points for the Lady Bulldogs came from Fagan, who was competing at her first NCAA outdoor meet after taking 10th at the 2016 NCAA Indoor Championships. Fagan was the only competitor to pass at 5-8 and then had first attempt clearances at 5-10 and 5-11.50. At the next height, Fagan was one of only two competitors to clear 6-0.75, hers coming on her third and final try. This solidified Fagan’s second-place finish after Kansas State senior Kimberly Williamson had a 6-2 clearance to win. Also in the triple jump, redshirt freshman Aliyah Johnson positioned herself as high as fifth during the competition with a top mark of 42-10.25. However, she was sitting eighth with nine advancing to the finals before the final two jumpers posted their best jumps of the competition and pushed Johnson to 10th. Full results from the NCAA Championships are posted at georgiadogs.com.
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Please reach out to Tatijana Jacobson if you would like anymore information about University of Georgia Men and Women’s Track and Field Programs.
The next Newsletter will be available December 20, 2016.