Rhonda Watkins jumps 6.96 to win the NCAA Championships (© Kirby Lee)
Rhonda Watkins, who won the NCAA Indoor Long Jump championship in March, added the outdoor championship today.
The 6.96m winning jump of the second-year student from the University of California at Los Angeles was wind-aided (+2.5), but it’s still a jump that puts her into the world picture in the same way that a victory in the 2005 NCAA did for Tianna Madison.
Madison, who was a second-year student at the University of Tennessee when she won that 2005 NCAA Long Jump with 6.60m, went on to win the IAAF World Championships in Helsinki. Winner of the World Junior title last year in Beijing, Watkins not only had her windy 6.96 today, but also wind-legal ones of 6.62 (+0.1) and 6.60 (+1.2).
The men’s Long Jump was won in an upset by Dashalle Andrews of Northridge in a tepid 7.68m (-1.6), from indoor champion Tone Belt, who also jumped 7.68 (-0.9). But Belt then fouled his next five jumps and thus had no mark to match Andrews’ second-best of 7.62 (-1.2). Belt was sure his final jump, which appeared to be around 7.90, was not a foul and protested, but the official in charge reportedly ordered the pit to be raked without a measurement being made (NCAA rules are sometimes different from IAAF and USATF rules).
The winning distance was the shortest by an NCAA champion since 1966. It capped a season in which not a single American collegiate jumper reached 8 metres; the best this year has been Belt’s 7.97 winning the indoor NCAA.
Jake Arnold of the University of Arizona set a major personal best winning his second straight NCAA Decathlon championship with 8215 points. Arnold, who improved his previous PB from 7870 to 7946 this spring, added another 269 points. He trailed Jangy Addy of Tennessee, who won five of the first seven events, until the Pole Vault. Then Arnold’s 5.30 clearance literally vaulted him into the lead. Addy was shunted into third place by a stunning 4:04.11 1500 metres by Joe Detmer of Wisconsin; he finished with 7963 to Addy’s 7808.
Finals were also contested in the men’s and women’s 10,000 metres. In the men’s race, Shadrack Songok (KEN) of Texas A&M Corpus Christi, outsprinted Galen Rupp of Oregon to win in 28:55.83: the women’s 10,000 was won by another Kenyan, Sally Kipyego of Texas Tech. As expected, she ran away with the race, cruising to a 30-metre victory in 32:55.71, a minute slower than her best time, perhaps to save herself for Friday’s 5000 metres final.
In qualifying rounds, Michelle Carter led the women’s Shot Put trials with a put of 17.30m, and Noah Bryant of Southern California led the men’s shot with 19.79m. Walter Dix won his semi-final of the men’s 200 in 20.48 (+0.5) and his Florida State team-mate Charles Clark won the other in a PB 20.38 (+1.3). The women’s 200 semis were won by Kerron Stewart (JAM) and Ebonie Floyd.
Jim Dunaway for the IAAF
