Hardee tallies 8465 collegiate record at Texas Relays
Friday 7 April 2006
Austin, Texas, USA - Trey Hardee, a 22-year-old student at the University of Texas, turned in a strong early-season Decathlon to win the event at the Texas Relays, the traditional opening meeting of the U.S. outdoor season.
Hardee’s score of 8,465 broke the American collegiate record of Tom Pappas, who scored 8,463 in 1999. It moves him into eighth place on the U.S. all-time list, just behind 1976 Olympic champion Bruce Jenner.
Trey Hardee at the New Balance Collegiate Invite in New York
(Victah Sailer)
Event-by-event Hardee’s two days went like this:
100 - 10.35 (+2.5w) - 1011 points
LJ - 7.70 (+3.0) - 985
SP - 14.45m - 756
HJ - 1.99m - 794
400 - 49.11 - 856
–Day One 4,402
110H - 13.83 - 997
DT - 48.24m - 834
PV - 5.20m - 972
JT - 60.00m - 738
1,500 - 5:06.73 - 522
–Day Two 4,063
Total - 8,465
If he had been able to match his personal best in the 1,500 (4:42.61), Hardee would have tallied more than 8,600 points. But not surprisingly, he wilted in the hot, humid weather (32 Celsius), especially in the last 200 meters, which he covered in 41-plus seconds. “That was one of the hardest races I’ve ever run,” he said. “I blacked out the last 300 meters.”
Despite recent injury, a massive improvement
It was also a massive improvement for Hardee, whose previous best tally was 8,041 from the 2004 NCAA Championships where he finished second. He won the collegiate title last year with a more modest 7,881 score.
Chris Huffins, an 8,694 performer in 1998 and now head coach at the University of California, said, “He put up some monster marks today. He’s really young, and 8,400 is phenomenal. If he continues he’s going to be one of the great ones.”
What makes the 1.96m, 100kg Hardee’s performance even more impressive is that he is still recovering from a badly sprained right ankle incurred on 11 March at the NCAA indoor championships. His first workout since the injury took place on March 27, only nine days ago, and he had only one practice in each of the throws.
“Most of my training has been re-habbing the ankle,” he joked.
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NOTE: Hardee’s ten-event total was originally announced as 8,462, a single point short of the collegiate record. Nearly an hour after the last 1,500-meter runner had crossed the line, meet referee John Chaplin approached a group of reporters standing just off the track waiting to interview Hardee.
Chaplin told the reporters that it was his custom, when any performance was close to a record – either just breaking the record or just missing it – to review all the official results to be sure that the correct time, distance, or height had been reported.
In this case, he added, he had secured and inspected the photo-finish pictures for the 100 meter, 400 meters, 110-meter hurdles and 1,500 – and each of the six field event result sheets with the officials’ handwritten record of each jump and throw.
The only difference he found, he said, was in the 100 meters finish photo. Chaplin said that a close inspection of the photo showed that Hardee’s time, originally announced as 10.36 some 30 hours earlier just after the 100 meters, was actually in fact, 10.35, which added 3 points to Hardee’s total, raising it from 8,462 to 8,465.
Either way, it was a stunning performance. And on a less oppressively hot day, it very likely would have been over 8,500.
James Dunaway for the IAAF