After a heavy rainstorm soaked the runway and thinned out the men’s high jump field on Friday, a familiar face emerged as the American champion on Sunday.
Erik Kynard, a 25-year old Kansas State alum now competing for Brand Jordan, emerged victorious with a winning leap of 7 feet, 6 inches. It was Kynard’s fourth straight U.S. title, and he is now headed to his third Olympic games after winning silver at the 2012 London Summer Games.
“I don’t feel like I jumped high enough,” Kynard said. “I keep my season averages, and 2.29 (meters) is going to put a damper on it. I’m going to have to make a higher bar sometime soon before the Games start to get my average up.”
Kynard cleared each of the first four heights on his first attempt, and along with Kyle Landon of Southern Illinois, was one of just two competitors to clear 7-5 and advance to 7-6. Kynard easily cleared the height on his first jump, but Landon failed to register a successful attempt and would finish second.
From there, Kynard passed on 7-7 1/4 and elected to move the bar straight to 7-8 1/2 which would have matched the meet record. However, Kynard missed on all three of his attempts and ended with a winning height of 7-6, the second-lowest winning mark since 1980.
“I wasn’t thinking about that meet record,” kynard said. “I was thinking about making the team, first and foremost. I didn’t even know what the meet record was. I had a garbage bag, preparing for the rain.
“I was trying to figure out if I needed to bring some scuba gear, because the qualifying was a little wet.”
Of the three athletes who earned a podium spot, only two qualified for the U.S. Olympic team. The Olympic standard for the high jump is 7-6, and a handful of athletes had already met the mark prior to the meet, but Landon was not one of them.
Joining Kynard on the Olympic team will be third place finisher Bradley Adkins, who reached the standard with a jump of 7-6 in February while competing for Texas Tech. Accompanying Kynard and Adkins will be Ricky Robertson, who finished sixth on Sunday while competing unattached, but met the standard on June 19 at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif.
The only local athlete in the event’s final wasn’t a current Duck or OTC Elite member, but rather Lane Community College redshirt sophomore Dakarai Hightower. A two-time Northwest Athletic Conference champion, Hightower registered the second-best jump by a junior college athlete in American history with a leap of 7-5 at the NWAC Championships in May.
The 21-year-old Hightower came to Lane when his childhood friend, former Lane sprinter Jemiel Lowery, convinced Hightower to join him in Eugene after academic troubles prevented him from attending a Division I school.
“I learned to not worry about what everyone else is doing,” Hightower said. “You’ve just got to go out there and make adjustments for yourself and just jump.”
Partially due to the rainy conditions during Friday’s preliminary round, some of the biggest names in the event failed to make the final and did not compete in the final. Notable athletes who missed out on a spot in the finals were USC standout and 2016 NCAA champion Randall Cunningham (personal-best of 7-5), East Carolina’s Avion Jones (personal-best of 7-7) and 2012 gold medalist Jesse Williams of OTC Elite (personal-best of 7-8 3/4).
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