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LSU TRACK & FIELD HOLDS ANNUAL PENTATHLON ON THANKSGIVING WEEK
BATON
ROUGE – Members of the LSU Track & Field program anticipate
Thanksgiving week each year as it not only marks the conclusion of the
team’s fall training season, but it also features one of the unique
traditions of the program with the annual team pentathlon held at the
Carl Maddox Field House.
The annual LSU Track & Field
Team Pentathlon is held the Tuesday before Thanksgiving each fall,
while pitting the program’s sprinters, hurdlers, jumpers and throwers
against one another in a competition boasting five events such as the
30-meter dash, standing long jump, standing triple jump, between the
legs forward shot throw and overhead backward shot throw.
Defending
their individual pentathlon titles on Tuesday were juniors Daniel
Obioha and Brittany Porter as a number of competition records were set
for the afternoon. The jumpers and multi-event athletes claimed this
year’s group titles with victories over the program’s
sprinters/hurdlers and throwers.
Porter, who also captured
pentathlon titles as a freshman in 2009 and as a sophomore in 2010,
established a new overall women’s scoring record with 338 points
through five events.
Porter scored 76 points with her mark
of 59 feet, ¾ inches in the overhead backward shot throw, 72 points
with a time of 4.21 seconds in the 30-meter dash, 66 points with a mark
of 9-10 ½ in the standing long jump, 63 points with an impressive
record-setting performance of 28-10 ½ in the standing triple jump and
62 points with a throw of 53-5 ¾ in the between the legs forwards shot
throw.
Porter’s total of 338 points eclipsed the previous
women’s scoring record of 321 points scored by a duo of former
standouts in Monet Rice in 2002 and Lolo Jones in 2003. Her top effort
of 28-10 ½ in the standing triple jump also set a new event record,
breaking the mark of 27-9 ½ set by Marita Hunt in 1994.
Obioha
defended the men’s pentathlon title that he won for the first time a
year ago while scoring his total of 402 points that eclipsed the 389
points he set in his first competition in 2010.
Obioha
actually set three event records for a thrower as he scored 89 points
with a time of 3.94 in the 30-meter dash, 88 points with a mark of 11-4
in the standing long jump and 87 points with a mark of 33-6 for the
standing triple jump. He matched the 30-meter dash record also set by
thrower Michael Yaslosky back in 1987, while he eclipsed the previous
throws records of 11-0 in the standing long jump for John Nichols and
32-4 ¼ in the standing triple jump by Simon Williams in 1988.
Fellow
junior Damar Forbes finished in second to Obioha in the men’s
competition with 380 points, while both senior Cassandra Tate and
former Lady Tiger standout Lolo Jones finished runner-up to Porter in
the final women’s pentathlon standings with 287 points apiece.
Forbes
teamed with seniors Kyron Blaise (362) and Marcus McGehee (336) to
claim the men’s group title for the jumpers and multi-event athletes
with their total of 1,078 points. Porter joined sophomore Lynnika Pitts
(253) and freshman Kaitlyn Moreau (243) in scoring 834 points to
complete the sweep with a win by the women’s jumpers and multi-event
athletes on Tuesday afternoon.
The group titles at the
annual LSU Track & Field Team Pentathlon are determined by
combining the three top scores by athletes competing for the
sprinters/hurdlers, jumpers/multis and throwers.
In
addition to Obioha’s record-setting performance in winning the men’s
pentathlon title, the Tigers broke three class records on the afternoon
with Forbes setting the junior record in the standing long jump at 11-4
¼, Keyth Talley posting his senior record in the 30 meters with a time
of 3.78 and Aaron Earnest breaking the freshman record in the 30 meters
with a time of 3.76.
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