Feb. 15, 2008
AMES, Iowa - Significant and stunning. Those are two words that can only help in describing sophomore Nick Adcock's (Kansas City, Mo./Oak Park HS) two-day performance in the heptathlon at the Iowa State Classic in Ames that concluded Friday afternoon. After crossing the tape in the 1000-meter run, the seventh and final event, Adcock amassed a score of 5,644, topping Olympian Hans Uldal's school record by five points. In addition, with Adcock's NCAA-provisional qualifying mark he becomes only the third collegian this season to score above 5,600 points in laying claim as the Big 12's leader. Although he was only six points from qualifying automatically to the NCAA Indoor Championships, he is all-but a sure bet to be accepted to the national meet.
Annually around 16 to 18 of the best national marks are accepted into the NCAA Indoor Championships in the heptathlon. Last season, only 10 collegians scored above 5,600 points in the event.
"I do gotta say this is a great feeling, but I knew coming in with the way my training had been going, that this was possible," said Adcock afterwards. "My practice on Tuesday in the [pole] vault and the shot [put] really gave me a lot of confidence heading into the weekend."
Last season at the very same meet, Adcock competed in his very first heptathlon and scored a respectable 4,993 points. It was respectable because he had only did some form of two of the seven events before that event itself. Since, Adcock went on to learn new events such as the javelin and discus for the decathlon, the 10-event outdoor-cousin to the heptathlon, and went on to score above the 7,000-point barrier in that event to raise eyebrows in earning all-conference honors last May at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships. After that, Adcock really shocked everyone in winning the USATF Junior Championship in the event and went on from there to claim Silver at the Pan-Am Junior Games in Brazil. It's been a learning process, but Adcock has proven to be one heckuva student.
"Last year, I was totally new to this whole multi-event thing, I really didn't know what the heck I was doing" Adcock continued. "Since, everything has been a learning process, and there is still more learning to do. I especially want to do better on the mental part of the competition. I feel with a better mental approach to different events, the ability will come. That's maybe one thing that people may not understand right away about these events, the mental aspect is a huge part of the process - if you do bad in one event, you have a tendency to make it affect your next."
Adcock started yesterday on the right foot, notching a good time of 6.72 seconds in the 55-meter dash that was followed by the third-best mark among the field, a three-inch personal best, in the long jump with a 22 foot, 9¾ inch (6.95m) jump. Since last year, Adcock had improved his PR in the event by 16 inches, and thus put himself already 110 points up on his "PR" pace, set last year at the Big 12 Indoor meet (5,129).
In the shot put, Adcock threw to 43-11¼ (13.39m) to keep gaining on his all-time best pace.
"The shot was actually disappointing," said Adcock. "My all-time best is about five inches farther, but I was happy to respond in the high jump the way I did."
Adcock cleared 6-8¾ (2.05m) in the high jump, an all-time best for the combined events and just a quarter-inch from his overall best. The four-event, day one total had reached 3,157, 210 points better than what he had ever done before.
To start day two, Adcock set a good tone in running the 55-meter hurdles in 7.66 seconds, a time comparable to his 60-meter school-record equivalent. Next, it was to the pole vault. Last year, Adcock was satisfied with his clearance of 12-1¼ (3.69m) in his first real look at the event. This year, it was a personal-best clearance of 13-11¼ (4.25m) that put Adcock 439 points up on his old best with one event remaining.
In the final event, the 1000 meters, Adcock clocked 2:41.29 to gain a PR in that event by nearly three seconds.
"Me and the coaches knew that 2:40-ish would have gave me an automatic qualifying mark, so I was a little disappointed when I saw 2:41, but all things considered, it was still pretty nice to hear I had broke the school record."
Adcock finished as the best collegian and third overall in the competition. The two that bettered Adcock? Olympic Silver Medalist and 2005 World Champ Bryan Clay scored 6,192 points on the way to the win while 30-year-old Canadian Lyndon McDowell, formally of Minnesota, took second with 5,721 points. Adcock actually bettered Clay in the high jump and 1000-meter events.
"It was really fun competing with Bryan," said Adcock. "I saw the heat sheets the night before and the coaches told me not to be distracted and just to concentrate on my own work. I talked to him a little bit between events and it was great to have him side-by-side in the high jump as he jumped right before I did. I learned a lot by watching how he composed himself throughout the weekend - it was just a great experience all around."
Head Coach Rick McGuire remarked earlier in the week that Nick is a really good heptathlete, but the decathlon (adding the 400 meters and the javelin) is truly his strong event.
On the national-collegiate list, only Northern Iowa senior Raven Cepeda (5,906) and Oregon sophomore Ashton Eaton (5,859) have scored higher so far this season. Eaton, arguably a better hept-athlete than dec-athlete because of his speed, actually was runner up to Adcock at last June's USATF Junior meet.
Adcock will compete in his next full heptathlon at the Big 12 Indoor Championships and may still do some individual events next week at the Missouri All-Comers.
Meanwhile, a whole host of events are still left for the remainder of the Mizzou track-and-field teams at this weekend's Iowa State Classic. Look for a complete rundown of today and tomorrow's action last Saturday or early Sunday on mutigers.com.
Iowa State University 2008 ISU Track and Field Classic - 2/14/2008 to 2/16/2008 Ames, IAMen Heptathlon Points 55 LJ SP HJ Day1 55H PV 1000 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 Clay, Bryan 6.77 7.56m 15.91m 2.02m 7.74 5.15m 3:06.39 Nike 24-09.75 52-02.5 6-07.5 16-10.75 Team Points: 10 6192 (966) (950) (846) (822) 3584 (1048) (957) (603) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 McDowell, Lyndon 7.29 6.98m 14.69m 2.08m 8.33 4.65m 2:48.90 Unattached 22-11 48-02.5 6-09.75 15-03 Team Points: 8 5721 (782) (809) (771) (878) 3240 (900) (804) (777) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Adcock, Nick 6.72 6.95m 13.39m 2.05m 7.66 4.25m 2:41.29 Missouri 22-09.75 43-11.25 6-08.75 13-11.25 Team Points: 6 5644 (814) (802) (691) (850) 3157 (940) (688) (859) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 Grzesiak, David 6.94 6.70m 11.40m 2.05m 8.01 4.55m 2:43.66 Wisconsin 21-11.75 37-05 6-08.75 14-11 Team Points: 5 5353 (735) (743) (570) (850) 2898 (847) (775) (833) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 Taylor, Justin 6.78 6.73m 11.91m 1.96m 8.34 4.35m 2:51.68 Wichita State 22-01 39-01 6-05 14-03.25 Team Points: 4 5137 (792) (750) (601) (767) 2910 (763) (716) (748) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 Bohler, Justin 6.89 6.64m 11.02m 1.84m 7.90 4.25m 2:52.40 Wisconsin-Milwaukee 21-09.5 36-02 6-00.5 13-11.25 Team Points: 3 4995 (753) (729) (547) (661) 2690 (876) (688) (741) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 Bertoli, Anthony 7.15 6.08m 9.92m 1.78m 8.06 4.75m 2:41.08 Indiana State 19-11.5 32-06.5 5-10 15-07 Team Points: 2 4888 (664) (604) (481) (610) 2359 (834) (834) (861) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 Paul, Ryan 6.72 6.50m 11.80m 1.75m 8.45 4.15m 3:16.29 Iowa State 21-04 38-08.75 5-08.75 13-07.25 Team Points: 1 4598 (814) (697) (594) (585) 2690 (736) (659) (513) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 9 Hanning, Cooper 6.66 6.03m 10.49m 1.63m 7.95 3.25m 2:51.83 Wichita State 19-09.5 34-05 5-04.25 10-08 4460 (836) (593) (515) (488) 2432 (863) (418) (747) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 10 Jackson, Brian 7.01 5.78m 11.12m 1.75m 8.19 3.05m 2:46.56 Indiana State 18-11.75 36-05.75 5-08.75 10-00 4361 (711) (540) (553) (585) 2389 (801) (369) (802) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 11 Breth, Jacob 6.89 5.42m 12.11m 1.87m 8.86 2.85m 2:40.52 Kansas University 17-09.5 39-08.75 6-01.5 9-04.25 4346 (753) (465) (613) (687) 2518 (639) (321) (868) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 12 Ortmeier, Michael 7.37 5.52m 10.54m 1.84m 8.58 3.85m 2:53.16 Northwestern 18-01.5 34-07 6-00.5 12-07.5 4270 (592) (485) (518) (661) 2256 (705) (576) (733) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DNF Dykstra, Peter SCR DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS Wisconsin (0) (0) (0) (0) (0) (0) (0) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DNF Bacon, Troy 6.95 5.94m 10.46m 1.78m 8.54 DNS Unattached 19-06 34-04 5-10 (732) (574) (513) (610) (714) (0) (0) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DNF Kirk, Josh 6.82 6.41m 11.00m 1.60m DNS DNS 2:46.71 Kansas University 21-00.5 36-01.25 5-03 (778) (677) (546) (464) (0) (0) (800) ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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