Aug. 5, 2010

BARCELONA, Spain - Mizzou junior Lars Rise (Trondheim, Norway) placed 15th overall in the decathlon at the 20th Annual European Championships after posting 7,714 points in the two-day event in Barcelona, Spain. Rise was the top Norwegian in the event and was the youngest decathlete to place in the top 15 in the competition. His total score of 7,714 was just off of his personal-best total of 7,776.

Rise's top performance in the 10-event competition came on day two in the javelin when he threw 71.71m (235-3) to earn 915 total points. That throw claimed Rise the event title by nearly 20 feet as the throw was a substantial personal-best mark that earned him 90 points of separation from the second-place finisher in the event.

The Tiger junior also had a great performance in the shot put on day one as he placed second overall in the event with a throw of 15.46m (50-8 ¾). That mark earned him 881 points in the overall competition. He also posted day one marks of 11.46 in the 100m dash for 26th place overall, 50.47 on the 400m dash to place 20th overall, 1.95m (6-4 ¾) in the high jump to place 15th and 7.03m (23-0 ¼) in the long jump to round out his day.

Aside from his javelin on day two, Rise clocked a time of 4:36.04 in the 1,500m run to round out his performance in the two-day event to add 705 total points to his overall score and place him eighth in the event. Rise struggled by his standards in the remaining day two events - the pole vault, 110m hurdles and the discus - but his marks in the javelin and 1,500m run were enough for him to keep pace with the top decathletes in Europe.

Romain Barras of France won the competition with a score of 8,453 points. In all, seven decathletes broke the 8,000-point barrier in the competition.

The European Championships are not the only European competition for a Tiger decathlete this summer as Nick Adcock (Kansas City, Mo.) will compete in the Thorpe Cup this weekend. The competition pits the best American decathletes against the top German decathletes. Adcock competed in the event last season as well.

For all the latest on Mizzou track and field, stay tuned to MUTigers.com.

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