The defending champ can’t defend against injury.
Oregon junior John Stiegeler, last season’s NCAA champion in the javelin and this season’s current national leader, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and will not compete for the rest of the season.
“It’s a part of sports,” Stiegeler said. “It’s a gamble every time you go out there. I lost this round, but there will be plenty more rounds in the future.”
The junior thrower suffered the injury when he planted for his fourth throw at the Texas Relays on Saturday. Before scratching from the competition, Stiegeler won it with a throw of 242 feet, 11 inches. That throw earned him Pacific-10 Conference Field Athlete of the Week honors for this week.
The Coos Bay native will have surgery on the torn medail meniscus in his knee on Thursday, and will have surgery on his ACL in six to seven weeks.
In a supreme twist of irony, Stiegeler’s nation-leading throw of 247 feet could lead the nation all season, and possibly even through the NCAA Championships. His throw of 252-10 in the NCAA Championships last season beat the next-best toss by a full 13 feet.
“I was looking forward to repeating, and I felt like I would have,” Stiegeler said. “I felt like I had some big throws left in me.”
The injury deals a serious blow to the Ducks’ chances of repeating last season’s ninth-place finish in the NCAA Championships. At the meet last season, Stiegeler’s national title accounted for 10 of
Oregon’s 27 points in the team competition.
“It’s a pretty big blow to the team, but hopefully it can bring the team closer together,” Stiegeler said. “You don’t see the character of a team until something like this happens.”
Stiegeler, who used his redshirt year as a backup placekicker at Oregon State before coming to Oregon, said he will apply for a special medical redshirt this season.

Oregon Prone
Stiegeler is not the only defending NCAA champion on the Oregon squad to suffer an injury this season. Senior Santiago Lorenzo, last season’s national champion in the decathlon, has yet to compete in an outdoor meet because of a quadricep injury suffered late in the indoor season.
Oregon officials would not put a timeline on Lorenzo’s comeback, saying that the decathlete makes his decisions week-to-week.
Lorenzo’s fellow decathlete, senior Billy Pappas, has also missed the entire outdoor season with an injury, but will likely return to action this weekend in the Washington Dual. Pappas finished eighth in the NCAA decathlon last season.

Simon Says
With the bevy of injuries to stars of the men’s team, middle-distance runner Simon Kimata echoed the sentiments of many when he asked, “Where will the points come from?”
The Washington Dual meet this Saturday is one of only four scored meets of the season, where the Ducks compete directly with other teams. The two remaining scored meets are the Pacific-10 Conference Championships and the NCAA Championships.
So with point-scorers like Stiegeler and Lorenzo not competing this weekend, the injured Kimata said he will compete in the meet because he “feels bad.” Kimata is one of three NCAA automatic qualifiers from the Oregon team this season — Stiegeler and distance-runner Jason Hartmann are the other two — and his points in the 800 meters could have a big impact on the team competition, especially with so many injuries.
Kimata has a strained left Achilles tendon, but the injury is minor and Kimata has been doing rehabilitation workouts all week.
“I don’t know the status of John and the status of Santiago, but we’re going to do as much as we can to make up for their points,” Kimata said.
Oregon and Washington will square off starting at noon on Saturday in the Washington Dual at Hayward Field.