But for the strong winds blowing in Austin, Ashton Eaton would have shattered the Oregon decathlon record. Yet again.
The senior from Bend won the decathlon with a personal-best 8,310 points in his outdoor debut at the Texas Relays over Wednesday and Thursday, the fourth-best mark of all time among collegians. Eaton’s mark easily bettered his previous high of 8,241 points from the 2009 NCAA Championships and Pedro daSilva’s school-record 8,176 points from 1992.
However, as with the 2009 NCAA mark, part of Eaton’s point total came in a wind-aided event (above the “legal limit” of 4.0 meters per second) that nullifies its status in the record books.
Eaton set lifetime bests in the first three events of the competition en route to a first-day point total of 4,494 points, a personal best. He then tied a personal best in the 110m hurdles (13.85 seconds with a 4.9 meters-per-second tailwind) and set another one in the discus (143 feet 5 inches) to run away from the field. Michael Morrison, the runner-up from Cal, finished with 7,557 points.
Brianne Theisen made it a Duck sweep with a victory in the women’s heptathlon, scoring 5.942 points to the 5,795 of Aisha Adams of Angelo State. The senior from Humboldt, Sask., won five of the seven events, with personal bests set in the high jump (5-10.75) and shot put (41-5).
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