Williams Leads at Texas Relays

Published by David Kiefer/Stanford SID on March 30th, 2016

AUSTIN, Texas – Stanford sophomore Harrison Williams leads the decathlon at the Nike Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays after the first day of the 10-event, two-day competition Wednesday.

Competing only 17 days after taking fourth in the seven-event heptathlon at the NCAA Indoor Championships, Williams has 4,036 points. He holds a 60-point lead over second-place Ingmar Vos, a 2012 Dutch Olympian, and trails his own school-record pace by only 21 points.

Williams’ main goal for this meet is to get a qualifying mark into the NCAA Outdoor Championships (June 8-11), which would allow him to train through most of the season in preparation for the Pac-12 and NCAA decathlons. 

Last year, 7,302 was enough to get into NCAA’s, which shouldn’t be a problem for Williams, who scored more than 7,500 in each of his three decathlons during the 2015 collegiate season. His best of 7,806 was a school record and placed him fourth at the NCAA Championships. It also probably is enough to get him into the Olympic Trials. Automatic qualifying is 7,900, but there may not be enough at that standard to fill the field, and those with the next-lowest scores would be brought in.

Williams opened Wednesday’s competition by winning the 100 meters in 10.72 seconds. It was a personal record for any conditions, but was aided by a 3.3 meters per second wind. He also won the 400 – the last of the five first-day events -- in 47.26. In between, he long-jumped 22-7, put the shot 42-8 ¾, and high-jumped 6-2 ¾. Thursday’s events include two of his best – the 110 high hurdles and pole vault.