AUSTIN – Texas A&M senior Lindon Victor leads the decathlon at the 90th Texas Relays after the first day on Wednesday as he compiled a career best score of 4,516 points through the first five events of the 10-event discipline. Victor is now on course to challenge the collegiate record of 8,465 points set during the 2006 Texas Relays by Trey Hardee.
The first day score by Victor is an all-time collegiate best, bettering the 4,500 points Oregon’s Ashton Eaton scored during the NCAA Championships in 2010.
Last season Victor produced 4,309 points during the first day of the SEC Championships on the way to scoring a school record 8,446 points. Then he had a first day score of 4,308 on the way to scoring 8,378 points to win the NCAA title.
“Please tell me I scored over 4,500 points,” Victor asked after his final race of the day. “To God be the glory. I’ve always prayed about having a day like this and a score like this. God answers prayers. Thank you, that’s all I can say.
“The biggest thing in the multi is being consistent. I think I was able to do that today. All my events went well today. I wanted to score over 4,400 this season. I’m a little ahead of that, which is awesome going into the second day.”
Twenty athletes started the decathlon, including Hardee, who had a first-day total of 4,402 when he set the collegiate record. Trailing Victor in the Texas Relays decathlon are Scott Filip of Rice (4,252), BYU’s Kevin Nielsen (4,064) and a trio of Longhorns – Steele Wasik (4,054), Wolf Mahler (4,041) and George Patrick (3,991).
“When I heard Trey was going to be here I was excited,” said Victor. “Growing up in Grenada I watched every Trey Hardee video there is. I’m pretty sure I’ve watched everything. He’s one of the few idols I have in the multi. With him being here, and supporting me, most of all, is really a blessing.
“I’ll be happy if I break his record. Anytime you get to break a collegiate record it’s a good thing. I don’t set limits on myself, I’m just going out there to compete and live with the score. Thinking about the collegiate record is kind of setting a limit on what I can actually score.”
Opening with the 100m, Victor topped the field of 20 entrants in the decathlon with a time of 10.63 seconds to earn 945 points. It was his second fastest time ever in a decathlon 100m, just off the 10.60 he ran in the NCAA Championships a year ago. Hardee was runner-up to Victor with a time of 10.67.
In the long jump Victor set a career best of 24-2 ¼ (7.37), scoring 903 points as he finished fourth among the field. In the shot put Victor started off with an outdoor best of 54-2 ½ (16.52) to pick up 883 points as he topped the field by five inches.
“Trey gave me some tips in the long jump, surprisingly,” noted Victor. “He just told me to keep it going. That to me is big.”
Moving to the high jump a pair of outdoor career best heights had Victor clearing 6-8 on his second attempt, and 6-9 on his first try. Then Victor made 6-10 ¼ (2.09) on his third effort to better his overall personal best of 6-9 ½ (2.07) he achieved indoors this season.
“It was awesome and a long time coming to get over that height on my third jump,” noted Victor. “We still have some tweaks to do in the high jump.”
The end result in winning the high jump was 887 points for a total of 3,618 points through four events. That tally bettered his four-event score at both the SEC (3,416) and NCAA (3,434) meets from 2016. It’s also moved Victor ahead of Hardee’s total of 3,546 through four events of his collegiate record score.
Closing out the first day with the 400m, Victor ran 48.24 seconds to set another career best with the third best time among the field. The 898 points pushed Victor’s first day tally over 4,500 points.
The second day of the decathlon continues with the 110m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1,500m.
Texas A&M’s Shaina Burns finished the first day of the heptathlon in 13th place with 3,269 points while Aggie alum Annie Kunz is in 15th place with 3,255 points.
Burns marks included a 14.41 in the 100m hurdles (921 points), a high jump of 5-5 ¾ (1.67 | 818), had the second best shot put with a 43-3 ¼ (13.19 | 740) and then posted a 26.08 (790) in the 200m.
Erica Bougard, who competed at Mississippi State, leads the heptathlon with 3,740 points while Taliyah Brooks of Arkansas is the top collegian with 3,691 points in second place.
Thursday’s action will resume at 10 a.m. with the decathlon and 11 a.m. with the heptathlon. Field events also begin at 11 a.m. while prelims in the 400m hurdles start at 4:30 p.m. Distance races will begin at 7:20 p.m. for the Aggies.
Story courtesy of Texas A&M Athletics