Under the sunny skies of Tucson a trio of Lion decathletes went to battle yesterday at the annual Jim Click Multis on the campus of the University of Arizona. For both Telvin Tavernier and Kevin Nault, it was their second competitive outing of the season, while Mark Emode was making his season debut. All got off to a strong start with solid performances over 100m.
Telvin Tavernier amped up the dial in the long jump as he leapt to a new personal best of 6.97 metres, 5 centimetres beyond his previous best in the event. We had believed Kevin Nault had also set a monstrous best in the long jump when the original results posted showed a mark of 6.81 metres. Unfortunately, the jump was corrected to 6.18m, but Nault still managed a best of 6.34 metres on the day.
As the trio moved through the shotput, high jump and 400 metres to round out the day, all had consistent performances, setting themselves up for a good score at the culmination of day two.
Following the first five events, Tavernier currently sits in eighth with a score of 3470 points. The mark is just 12 points behind pace of his personal best set at last year’s Pan Am Cup. Emode is 33 points behind in ninth and on pace for a personal best. Nault concluded day one with 3313 points, a new high for the former Univesity of Ottawa Gee Gee. He is currently 78 points ahead of his personal best pace and sits 13th.
Competition resumes today at the Roy P. Drachman track with the 110m hurdles at 1:30pm local time or 3:30pm eastern.
Follow along with live results. The Lions athletes are all competing in Decathlon Group A.
