The Oregon men will be without junior distance phenom Galen Rupp in the Oregon Twilight on Saturday.
To gear up for the Pacific-10 Conference Championships next week, Rupp will take the weekend off to recover from two record-breaking meets in a row.
Last weekend in Palo Alto, Calif., Rupp broke Bill McChesney’s 25-year-old school record in the 10,000m when he clocked 27:33.48 – the third-fastest time in NCAA history.
That performance came on the heels of an enthralling 5,000m race at the Oregon Invitational the weekend before in which Rupp beat defending NCAA champion Chris Solinsky to the tape in 13:30.49.
Sprinter Marcus Dillon will also cut back on the number of races he’s running this weekend. Dillon will only compete in the 200m, and he says he’s once again looking to qualify for regionals.
Dillon’s season-best for the 200m is 21.30. The regional qualifying mark is 21.19.
Dillon ran a regional-qualifying time of 47.02 in the 400m when the Ducks were in California last weekend. He also holds regional qualifying marks in the 4x100m and 4x400m relays.
In the field events, hammer thrower Brian Richotte and javelin thrower Ryan Brandel are also coming off good performances. Richotte had a regional qualifying throw of 216-9 last weekend, and Brandel is ranked second in the nation in the javelin.
Sophomore Alexey Shkuratov and freshman Ashton Eaton will not be at the Oregon Twilight. Instead the pair will be in Palo Alto competing in the Pac-10 Championships decathlon.
“This is a completely different team from last year,” Oregon Director of Track and Field Vin Lananna said. “Last year we threw five different guys into the decathlon. We don’t have that caliber group this year, but I think both our guys are great and hopefully we can come away from it with some points.”
Eaton, primarily a long jumper and sprinter, logged an NCAA provisional score of 6,977 in his decathlon debut in March.
Because he never competed in the decathlon until this year, Eaton says he’s still trying to learn some of the events, and that the javelin is probably his weakest event.
“But it’s been going well,” Eaton said. “I just want to get out there and help the team score some points to start the Pac-10s.”
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