University of Georgia Athletics
Georgia Track & Field Hosts Home Meets
April 06, 2017 | Track & Field
ATHENS, Ga. --- The Georgia track and field program will host the Spec Towns Invitational and the Bulldog Decathlon/Heptathlon in Athens, Ga., Friday through Sunday.
The 40th-annual Spec Towns Invitational will welcome Akron, Buffalo, Clemson, North Carolina A&T and South Carolina, along with individuals from other collegiate teams and unattached competitors, to compete with the Bulldogs on Friday and Saturday.
The meet begins Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. with the men's hammer throw, the Lewis Gainey long jump (men and women in two pits) and the men's pole vault at the Spec Towns Track. The second day of the meet is slated to begin at 9 a.m. on Saturday.
On Saturday, the sixth-ranked Georgia men and seventh-ranked Lady Bulldogs will welcome back and recognize school record holder in the indoor long jump and NFL 12-time Pro Bowler Champ Bailey back to Spec Towns Track. 2012 Olympic bronze medalist Reese Hoffa and many other Bulldog track alumnae will also have a reunion at the track near the end of Saturday's action.
Originally scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, the sixth-annual Bulldog Decathlon/Heptathlon will now be run Saturday and Sunday because of the poor weather conditions on the original dates. The multi-event competition is expected to feature team members from Cincinnati, Georgia, Kentucky, Memphis, Michigan, Nebraska and South Carolina, along with a couple unattached participants.
The decathlon, starting with the 100-meter dash, is scheduled to begin at 11:45 a.m. Saturday morning and the heptathlon, starting with the 100m hurdles, is scheduled to begin at 12:00 p.m. The decathlon's 110m hurdles will start the final day of action on Sunday at 10:45 a.m.
There is free admission to all three days of action at the Spec Towns Track. Please visit the following link for live results of both the Spec Towns meet and the multis competition: http://gado.gs/7a8
Kyprianou's Comments: "Excitement is sky-high among our young men and women to showcase their talents in front of our home crowd, and most importantly in front of our alumni as we are hosting a big reunion for the second year in a row," Bulldog head coach Petros Kyprianou said. "In addition to anticipating some great times and performances by the field assembled to compete this weekend, we have some guests that will either surprise the crowds or put on a show! We can't wait to let our teams have fun and perform at a very high level against some of the country's best here in Athens. I urge everyone in our community and in the greater Atlanta area to come join us for a great show of Olympic-caliber track and field. We have tried really hard to make the schedule fan-friendly and easy to watch with our student-athletes taking the stage and putting on a show."
Last year, Karl Saluri scored 8,108 to win the Bulldog Decathlon and in doing so he hit the 8,100-point barrier necessary for him to advance to the Rio Olympics for his native Estonia. In the heptathlon, former Lady Bulldog Quintunya Chapman tallied 6,039 points to edge current Georgia standout Kendell Williams (5,957) for the victory. These scoring outputs continued a rich tradition of the Bulldogs' home meet producing national leaders and noteworthy scores worldwide.
"We have been waiting for this meet all year and our combined event student-athletes are excited to finally compete on their home track in front of their friends and family," said Kyprianou. "This meet is an established international decathlon-heptathlon competition that caught the attention of numerous international statisticians. For example, one of them (Nestor Calixto - South America/IAAF statistician) started the production of a bulletin that outlines the history of the meet, all the statistics pertaining to the numbers of the event and event forecast with score predictions and more. Devon (Williams), Karl (Saluri), Kendell (Williams), Louisa (Grauvogel), Aliyah (Johnson), Mary (Terry) and Makenzi (Kopp) are ready to have some fun on our home track. We are very committed in this under-appreciated event in track, and hopefully the community recognizes it by us changing the schedule because of the weather situation and accommodating these young men and women in their pursuit of qualifying for the NCAA Championships in June."
Bulldog Outdoor Debut: While many of their teammates competed at the Texas Relays in Austin, Texas, last weekend, a number of Georgia's most prolific scoring weapons trained through the season opener in anticipation for this week.
- For the multi-events, senior Kendell Williams and freshman Louisa Grauvogel in the heptathlon and senior Devon Williams and junior Karl Saluri in the decathlon will complete their first competitions of the season. Kendell Williams is a two-time NCAA champion, including capturing the 2016 crown.
- In the high jump, juniors Mady Fagan and Tatiana Gusin, who went 1-2 at the 2017 NCAA Indoor Championships, are scheduled to open up while sophomore Keenon Laine and freshman Darius Carbin, who were also both First Team scoring All-Americans at indoor Nationals, are slated to jump in their outdoor debut for Georgia.
- Sophomore Kate Hall will also be making her outdoor debut for the Lady Bulldogs in the long jump after scoring points of her own at this year's NCAA indoor meet.
Last Time Out: The Lady Bulldogs took a limited group to Austin for the Texas Relays and returned to Athens with a series of promising results. True freshman Beatrice Llano and senior Asianna Covington were the top two collegiate finishers (second and third overall) in the hammer throw thanks to a pair of collegiate personal bests. Llano, who was officially opening up for UGA in the event, unleashed four throws that measured at least 215 feet and topped out with a mark of 218 feet, 4 inches. This effort puts her third on the current national performance list and third on Georgia's all-time top-10 list with the best showing since 2010. Covington reached 198-3 on her second try and now has the fifth-best throw in the SEC this season. True freshman Jessica Drop moved into the No. 10 spot on the school's all-time top-10 list after she completed her 1500 meter laps in 4:25.89 to secure fourth place. Sophomore Aliyah Johnson worked up to a sixth triple jump attempt of 42-10.25, which equaled the second-best mark of her career, to take fifth. Back on the track, Catherine Reid, Devon Artis, Micaiah Ransby and Amber Tanner recorded the best 4x400m relay time for the Lady Bulldogs in more than a decade after finishing second in the finals with a 3:39.11. Artis also clocked a season-best time of 2:08.99 to take sixth in the 800m.
The Georgia men also tallied a pile of encouraging performances during their second outdoor meet of the year at the Texas Relays. Sophomore Kendal Williams made his official outdoor debut for the Bulldogs and left no one doubting his potency on the track. Speeding to a wind-legal 10.06 (No. 4 in the world this year, No. 3 in school record books) to win the 100-meter dash prelims, Williams took off for a wind-aided 9.99 (2.1/m) to shoot into the national lead and win the finals. His time stands No. 2 on the 2017 world list for wind-aided finishes and he is the top American thus far. The Bulldogs went 2-3 in the hammer throw with a pair of career bests of their own and now stand second and third nationally. Sophomore Denzel Comenentia started with a personal record of 233 feet, 8 inches, which gave him the fourth-best throw in UGA history and the best mark for Georgia since 2002. Senior Alex Poursanidis finished one inch behind his teammate at 233-7 on her third attempt and is now fifth in the record books and third nationally. Sophomore Jeramey Hampton surged to sixth in the school record books after taking third in the 800m with a time of 1:48.18. This time put him in the top 10 nationally. Individually, senior Maurice Freeman was eighth in the 200m Invite thanks to a time of 21.18. Also of note, junior Bryan Kamau edged the nearest competitor by .18 seconds to win the 1500m with a 3:49.72 while senior Sid Vaughn ran a personal-best time of 14:15.42 to finish first in the 5000m.
Updates from Georgia's track and field and cross country teams can always be found on Twitter/Instagram (UGATrack) and Snapchat (ugatrack).
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