NCAA Track & Field Championships: Kyle Garland Earns Bronze in Decathlon
Bulldog junior Kyle Garland scored the second-highest point total of his career to earn bronze medal honors in the decathlon highlighting the second day of the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore., on Thursday.
Garland, a native of Philadelphia, Pa., finished with dec personal records in the 100-meter dash, 400m and 1500m to score 8,333 points, marking his third top-three national finish of his career in the multi-events (silver in NCAA heptathlon in 2021-22). The Bulldogs have now had a scorer in the dec in every season since 2013, nine top-three finishers in that stretch and four national championships.
On Wednesday, senior Ahmed Magour scored a point for the Bulldog men in the javelin after launching his opening attempt 73.14m/239-11 to take eighth and earn an0ther expected First Team All-America certificate.
Other than the decathlon running Wednesday-Thursday and the heptathlon going Friday-Saturday, the meet is set up to be a men’s competition on Wednesday and Friday and a women’s competition on Thursday and Saturday.
Georgia also had three final qualifiers come out of the semifinal rounds. Junior Matthew Boling (100m/200m) and senior Elija Godwin (400m) each punched their ticket to finals on the track for Friday finals on Wednesday.
When Do The Bulldogs Start Day 3: Senior Darius Carbin will start the action on Friday in the men’s high jump at 8:30 p.m. ET. The track finals for the Bulldogs begin at 9:52 p.m.
Where To Catch The NCAAs: ESPN has exclusive rights to broadcast the meet and will feature the Nationals on a variety of platforms:
Friday: 9 p.m., ESPN2
Saturday: 5:30 p.m., ESPN
Live Results: To check out live results throughout the four-day season finale, please check: http://gado.gs/9dw
The Lowdown: Garland shot out of the blocks in the first event of the day and the decathlon’s sixth event overall (110m hurdles) with the fastest time of the race. His time of 13.87 changed a 49-point deficit into a 42-point deficit as Garland extended his lead over Texas’ Leo Neugebauer to 107 points. In the discus, Garland answered a foul and a second throw of 126-5 with a third effort of 42.00/137-9 to take seventh.
Since Garland’s group began the pole vault while the second group started in the discus, and then started the javelin before the second group completed the vault, the next accurate point standings came before the 10th and final event, the 1500m.
Garland cleared 4.81/15-9.25 in the pole vault, which marked his second-best performance and was eighth in the event. Later in the javelin, Garland worked up to a toss of 55.88/183-4 and was eighth overall when all groups completed the event. He was 44 points behind the leader and eventual national champion, Arkansas’ Ayden Owens-Delerme, and trailed Neugebauer who was in second by 33 after the ninth event.
Garland stormed down the final straightaway in the dec’s finale to register a personal record 4:41.96 and finish 13th in the event. This trimmed three points off his deficit to the second-place finisher and gave Garland third with the second-best score of his life.
The women had their first day of competition on Thursday. Junior Ana da Silva finished one spot out of qualifying for the shot put final. She reached 17.14/56-2.75 on her second attempt and was 10th at her first NCAA Outdoor Championships for the Lady Bulldogs.
In the first open event of the day, senior Titiana Marsh, a recent UGA graduate, opened with her top mark of 6.26/20-6.50 in the long jump and finished 11th for expected Second Team All-America honors. Marsh will return in the triple jump on Saturday at 5:50 p.m.
Today’s Photo Gallery: Darnell Washington
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