Hyleas Fountain shot putting in the Heptathlon at the 2009 US Champs (© Getty Images)
Hyleas Fountain may have silently let it be known that she is no longer satisfied being the second-best heptathlete on the planet. Competing in her first full Heptathlon of the year, the Beijing silver medallist roared to a lifetime-best first-day total of 4038 to lead the event after Saturday’s events (27) at the US Championships - a competition which offers points scoring opportunities in the IAAF World Combined Events Challenge.
Although perhaps not as dramatically as with the 12.65sec Hurdle race with which she started her title run in last year’s US Olympic Trials, Fountain nonetheless made a strong opening statement here with a 12.90 clocking in the 100m Hurdles for 1140 points. All of the top hurdlers were clustered in the third of five heats, but the 0.9 wind pushing them was nothing compared with some of the gusts which propelled the decathletes in the sprints the previous two days.
Gi-Gi Johnson was next across the line with 13.14 (1103), followed by USC student Nia-Sifaatihii Ali in 13.33 (1075) and Diana Pickler at 13.43 (1060).
In the High Jump, Fountain leaped 1.87m, a height she had exceeded only twice before in her career and a notable improvement on her 1.81 at the Olympic Trials. The resulting two-event score of 2207 - 38 points ahead of her personal-best pace from last year - gave her a gap of 97 ahead of Sharon Day, who led all competitors with 1.90 for a second-place total of 2110.
Pickler’s 1.81 was her best in the last two years, and it pulled her into third with an aggregate 2051, while Ali plummeted to a distant fourth with 1954 after her 1.72 best.
Johnson, not ordinarily a strong high jumper, was even more off the mark with 1.60 as she slid from second to ninth with 1839.
Fountain then had her most significant mark of the day with a superb PB 13.81m (previous was 13.38) in the Shot Put. It gave her a total of 2988 after three events which compares with 2920 at the same point in the Trials last year.
Day managed to barely hold second at 2821 with a 12.75m effort, as Pickler closed in with a massive PB 13.49 (up from 12.58!) for a composite 2811 in third.
Ali’s 2656 stayed in fourth place with a 12.61 release, as Bettie Wade moved into the top five with 2643 after a PB 13.98, the day’s best performance.
In the session-ending 200 metres, Fountain may have been slightly hampered by her lane-three assignment, but she handled it well. Coming off the curve, she had a five-metre lead and hit the finish in 23.29sec to end with her best-ever first-day total of 4038. By comparison, she ended the first day of last year’s Olympic Trials with 3968.
Running in an outside lane in Fountain’s section, Pickler ran 24.25 and went to the intermission with a distant-second 3768. Day’s 24.66 resulted in 3739 for third, while Ali remained far back in fourth with 3621 after her 24.16 race.
“I don’t really have a target score here,” Fountain said moments after the sprint, but she still acknowledged she had experienced a career first day. “If it (a PB) happens, it happens. I’m taking it one event at a time.”
“Last night was the best I’ve ever slept before a competition, so I felt I was ready to go,” she reported. “The hurdle time wasn’t a PB, but I haven’t really raced that much this year. There haven’t been so many meets for me to go to without heading to Europe.”
And about the big PB on her last attempt in the Shot Put? “It was a slow start there. But on the last one, I knew what I needed to do.”
With that, Fountain bade farewell to the media and went to the full-body ice bath.
Ed Gordon for the IAAF
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