Arkansas hosts USATF Combined Events Championships this weekend
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – John McDonnell Field will host its first USA Track & Field Championship event this Friday and Saturday, May 6-7, when the USATF Combined Events Championships are held on the University of Arkansas campus.
This marks the first time since 2002 that the decathlon and heptathlon will be held at a different site and on a different date from the USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships.
Coverage of the meet will be available through USATF.tv each day. Live results will be available here: https://www.flashresults.com/2022_Meets/Outdoor/05-06_USACombined/.
The top three finishers in this meet who have met the qualifying standards for the World Athletics Championships will earn a berth on Team USATF for the initial outdoor world championships to be held in the United States, which is scheduled for July 15-24 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.
Tickets for the USATF Combined Events Championships are available online at ArkansasRazorbacks.com (https://bit.ly/3E3ZQA8) in conjunction with the Arkansas Twilight being held on Friday, May 6. Tickets are $5 for adults. Individuals 17 years of age and younger are admitted free of charge.
Saturday’s session is free of charge for all spectators.
A field of 15 in the decathlon features 10 athletes who competed in the 2021 Olympic Trials, including the top six finishers from a year ago. The heptathlon field of 12 includes five of the top six finishers from the 2021 Olympic Trials.
Defending champion Garrett Scantling leads the men’s field and he is joined by Steven Bastien, runner-up a year ago, and Zach Ziemek, who placed third in 2021. Others who were among the top six in the Olympic Trials include Harrison Williams, Joseph Delgado, and Kyle Garland.
Scantling finished fourth in the Tokyo Olympics while Ziemek placed sixth and Bastien was 10th. Scantling’s career best score of 8,647 points from his Olympic Trials victory in 2021 moved him to No. 8 on the U.S. all-time list.
Kendell Williams is the top returner from the 2021 Olympics Trials in the women’s field. Williams finished as runner-up a year ago while Erica Bougard placed third. Both are previous USATF champions in the heptathlon with Bougard claiming a pair of titles in 2018 and 2019, while Williams won in 2017.
Bougard’s career best of 6,725 from 2018 ranks fourth on the U.S. all-time list while a 6,683 for Williams ranks sixth.
Williams placed fifth in the Tokyo Olympics and topped the field in the World Athletics Combined Events Challenge in 2021, earning a wild card into the 2022 World Championships. Bougard finished ninth in the Tokyo Olympics.
Also in the USATF Championships field are Mat Clark, Arkansas Strength & Conditioning coach for track and field, and Razorback alum Taliyah Brooks.
Clark, 34, has competed in 34 decathlons as a collegian and post-collegian. He produced a career best of 7,785 points in 2009. Last year he totaled 7,201 in placing fourth at the John McDonnell Invitational.
Brooks, the NCAA Indoor pentathlon champion in 2018, contested the 2021 Olympics Trials and was in fourth place heading into the final pair of events. In preparing for the javelin, she fainted due to the extreme heat and did not finish.
During the first day of the OT heptathlon, Brooks produced the best times in the 100m hurdles (12.95) and 200m (23.10w), totaling 2,216 points. Brooks generated a career best score of 6,252 points last season in winning the Texas Relays heptathlon.
