NEW ORLEANS – Texas A&M junior Lindon Victor was selected as the USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week following his record setting performance in winning the decathlon during the SEC Championships this past weekend.
With a world-leading score of 8,446 points Victor produced the fourth best score in collegiate history. The three scores that rank ahead of him include 8,465 by Trey Hardee of Texas, 8,463 by Tennessee’s Tom Pappas and 8,457 by Ashton Eaton of Oregon.
In winning the SEC title with a meet record performance, Victor defeated three-time defending champion Maicel Uibo of Georgia, who scored 8,315 points as runner-up. Victor bettered the previous SEC meet record of 8,326 set by Uibo in 2015.
Lindon’s previous best score in the decathlon was 7,453 from a seventh-place finish at the Pan Am Games last summer. He produced nine career best marks among the 10 events of the decathlon. Prior to the final event, Victor’s score of 7,810 had already surpassed his previous career best tally.
Other records from Victor’s decathlon included the best first day score in SEC history with 4,309 points, topping the 4,224 set by Uibo in 2015. Victor’s second day score of 4,137 points just missed the collegiate all-time best of 4,145.
In the discus a throw of 179-0 by Victor bettered the previous collegiate decathlon best of 176-8 as he topped the SEC field by 32 feet. Only three athletes in the world have thrown the discus further in a decathlon.
When taking all the throwing events of the decathlon into account, Victor produced the fifth best score in history. His total of 2,675 points from the shot put, discus and javelin were less than 75 points away from the world’s top score of 2,748 points by Canada’s Michael Smith in 1996.
Victor’s career best decathlon score also bettered the national record for Grenada. The previous best of 8,320 was set by his brother, Kurt Felix, during the 2015 World Championships. Combined they now have set the top decathlon score by brothers as their total of 16,758 points bettered the previous best of 16,529 set by Tom (8,784) and Billy (7,745) Pappas.
Story courtesy of Texas A&M Athletics