University of Georgia Athletics
Multi-Event Standouts Just Getting Started
May 07, 2015 | Track & Field
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
ATHENS, Ga. -- Georgia heptathlete Quintunya Chapman posted one of the best collegiate scores ever in April during the Georgia Relays Decathlon/Heptathlon at Spec Towns Track. The scary part is, she's just getting started.
And she's not alone.
When it comes to multi-event track and field athletes, Georgia has some of the very best in the land. Meaning all the land across the globe. For Bulldogs associate head coach Petros Kyprianou, who coaches the multi-event athletes, every day is a good day to come to work.
"It's just fun, fun to watch," he said.
Chapman is a senior that arrived at Georgia in 2012 as a sprinter. For two years she competed with some decent results and also battled injuries. By the end of her sophomore year, she wasn't having a lot of fun. and a change of some kind seemed like a great idea.
That idea, to use her abundant athleticism to maximum advantage in the multi-event heptathlon and pentathlon, was first planted before she ever competed for the Bulldogs.
"I thought about it my freshman year," said Chapman, of Hinesville, Ga. "I had never even thought about it until I took my official visit and coach (Wayne) Norton was like, you look like you could do multis.
"It didn't come back up until after my sophomore year."
Going from focusing on running sprints like to 200 and 400, with some long jump thrown into the mix, to training the mind and body for seven in the outdoor season and five during the indoor, wasn't easy. Doing events like the high jump, shot put and throwing a javelin, those took some major work.
"Javelin and high jump, they're still a big challenge, but I've gotten a lot better from when I first started," Chapman said.
The work is paying off in a big way. On April 9, during the Georgia Relays Decathlon/Heptathlon, Chapman scored a 6,146. That moved her past the 11-year-old school record of 6,033 set by 2008 Olympic silver medalist Hyleas Fountain and is the best mark in the NCAA this year. It was the second best score in the world this year and the 11th highest score ever by a collegian.
That big day was a reminder of how far she's come in less than two years. Of course, there's also a side of her wondering how far along she might be now if she'd started the multi-events when she arrived at Georgia. Kyprianou has the same thoughts.
"I go home every day and I'm like, I wish I had her from her freshman year," Kyprianou said. "That's OK. Better late than never, right?"
Unlike Chapman, who has come to the multi-event competitions late in her collegiate career, Kendell Williams has been dominant from just about Day One. The sophomore won the NCAA women's indoor pentathlon title earlier this year, giving her back to back titles, with a collegiate record score of 4,678 points. Williams is also the defending NCAA outdoor champion in the heptathlon; at last month's Student-Athlete Awards Banquet, she was named the UGA Female Athlete of the Year.
Between Williams and Chapman, Georgia has a pair of budding stars with possibly very bright futures for U.S. track and field. And the men's side isn't doing too shabby, either.
Garrett Scantling only has the world's best decathlon score this year. Like Chapman, the senior had a heck of performance at the Georgia Relays Decathlon/Heptathlon, setting a new school record with a score of 8,232, which is 189 points better than anyone else in the world in 2015.
Scantling was a good wide receiver in high school at Episcopal in Jacksonville, Fla., catching 66 passes in his senior season. He also excelled in the pole vault, high jump and triple jump, so his success in the decathlon is no surprise. Of course that doesn't mean getting to where he is now hasn't required a crazy amount of work.
"There's so much to train for," Scantling said. "I had to learn everything from scratch when I first got started. The javelin came pretty easy for me because I used to play baseball and it's kind of similar, but the discus and the shot put, getting the positions down was very hard for me.
"Hurdles is one of my best events now, but my freshman year I struggled with that, too."
Of course it's the final event, the most labor intensive of them all, that Scantling, like so many decathletes before him, dreads the most: the 1,500-meter run.
"I'm still not used to that," he said. "That's probably my least favorite event, but it's getting a lot better."
While Scantling has posted the world's top score this year, it's junior teammate Maicel Uibo that is the defending NCAA decathlon champion. And sophomore Devon Williams was an All-American in the heptathlon during the indoor season, so just being the best Bulldog on any given day is a challenge for the Georgia men and women.
Georgia's multi-event athletes will be in action in select individual events Saturday during the Georgia Invitational. It's a final tuneup before the Bulldogs head to Starkville, Miss., next week for the SEC Outdoor Championships, followed by the NCAAs.
While 2015 may already have been a breakthrough year, these Bulldogs are only just beginning to reach their potential.
John Frierson is a staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Hall of Fame at the Dan Magill Tennis Complex. You can follow him on Twitter: @TheFrierson and @ITAHallofFame.
Players Mentioned
