Senior Lindon Victor successfully defended his NCAA decathlon title on Thursday night at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. where he scored 8,390 points. This outing puts him seventh on the all-time collegiate list and marks his fifth 8,300-plus decathlon. Georgia’s Devon Williams finished with a distant 209 points in second place.
“This was a really tough meet for me,” Victor said to 12thMan.com. “I just thank God that I was able to get 10 points for my team. It was the hardest decathlon I’ve done. My experience from the Olympics in Rio last summer helped me.
“I think I did one decathlon too much coming into the NCAA meet. So, I was a little bit tired. But as Coach Henry always says, it’s what you think. Coming into here I knew I was going to win. Even if I had some subpar marks I knew I had to be consistent. That’s the decathlon, it comes down to who is mentally tough and can bounce back from a bad event.”
After one day of competition, Victor sat in third place with 4,339 points. The senior ran a 10.72 in the 100 meters (924 points) and long jumped 7.34 (896). He then topped the shot put standings with a heave of 16.31 (870). Victor followed that by high jumping 2.01 (813) and running 49.33 in the 400 meters (846) to finish his day.
Victor had two key wins on the second and final day of competition with distances of 53.31 in the discus throw (940) and 67.24 in the javelin throw (847). In his other three events, he ran 14.78 in the 110 meter hurdles (876), jumped 4.61 in the pole vault (793) and closed competition with a time of 4:55.71 in the 1,500 meters.
The Grenadian broke the collegiate decathlon record twice this season, first at the Texas Relays where he scored 8,472 points followed by his SEC title defense where he scored 8,539 points.
Despite not quite reaching Ashton Eaton’s NCAA meet record, Victor did set a career-best point total through nine events with 7,805, up from his 7,723 total in last year’s meet.
Victor trailed the meet record by 652 points heading into the final event, the 1,500 meters. Instead of pursuing the individual meet record for himself, which would have required a time of 4:44.45, the senior decided to play it safe and protect his 266-point lead to secure 10 team points for the Aggies.
“The meet record was on my mind, and I knew Devon could run a good 1500,” Victor continued to 12thMan.com. “If he was going to run it, I was going to go with him. Then at a point during the race I saw him give up, so I thought ‘I’m really tired and 10 points is very valuable to my team right now’. So, Ashton Eaton’s meet record still stands.”
With only a third of the events scored, the Texas A&M men have an early 11.5-point lead over Virginia and will look to widen the gap over the remaining day of competition. The men’s championship will be decided on Friday night with the last event scheduled being the 4×400 relay.