Midway through the decathlon at the Oregon Invitational, the Ducks’ Alexey Shkuratov and Cody Fleming are in third and fourth place in the field of seven, respectively.
After his sixth-place finish in the opening 100 meters, Fleming climbed to second with top-two marks in the shot put and high jump. He ended the first day of competition by taking sixth in the 400.
Fleming saved his best effort for the shot put. His top throw of 44-4 gave the senior first place in the event.
Fleming was not surprised by his performance.
“I usually throw around 45 feet,” he said. “I’ve been working on different spins in practice and had some good results. … I just got it in today.”
Shkuratov had a consistent afternoon. The freshman from Belarus didn’t finish lower than fifth in any event.
He opened by taking second in the 100 then finished fifth in the long jump and shot put. He added another second-place mark in the high jump. His ending height was six feet, 4 3/4 inches.
Wisconsin’s Ben Roland currently leads with 3,731 points, followed by Tyler May of Team XO (3,671).
Roland won the long jump and finished second in the 400 and shot put. May won both track events.
Trailing Shkuratov (3,577) and Fleming (3,549) in the standings are Daniel Rennich (3,435) of Sacramento State and Brennan Boettcher (3,363) of Wisconsin. Team Nike’s Santiago Lorenzo is also competing but withdrew from day one after the shot put. The meet announcer said Lorenzo aggravated a past leg injury.
After the meet, Fleming was pleased with the finishes he and his teammate Shkuratov had.
“We had some strong events and some weak events but that’s how any decathlon goes,” Fleming said. “We definitely pulled it together though. That’s what you gotta do for the first day. Just pull your chips in and get ready for the next one.”
Competition picks up again at 12:15 p.m. today at Hayward Field. The day starts with the 110-meter hurdles then the discus, pole vault, javelin and 1,500.