National Records Earn Readers' and Editors' Choice Awards

Track and field fans voiced their choices in this week's DyeStat's Performance of the Week poll, while DyeStat's editors made their own selection.

Readers’ Choice: Jungle Track Club Boys

With 47.17 percent of the vote, the Jungle Track Club boys won our Readers’ Choice vote, beating Grant Holloway with her second-place tally of 19.1 percent.

The boys from Loudoun Valley VA came to New York City for New Balance Nationals Indoor at The Armory with a mission. Their goal was to win all three distance relays and to set a few high school records along the way.

Competing as the Jungle Track Club, they did exactly that. First came the distance medley relay on the first day of competition. The quartet of Jacob Hunter, Akere Simms, Connor Wells and Sam Affolder ran hard and fast, chasing the high school record of 9:56.18, a mark Affolder helped set in 2017 when he was a sophomore at Carlisle PA.

Now a senior at Loudoun Valley, Affolder used a 4:06 1,600-meter anchor leg to break the high school record. The Jungle Track Club ran 9:54.41, taking almost two seconds off the old record.

Watch the distance medley relay at NBNationalsIN.com.

The second day of competition featured the two remaining distance relays, the 4xMile relay and the 4x800 relay, making for a difficult double day.

First up was the 4xMile relay, a race in which the Jungle Track Club set the record in 2018. This time the lineup was Wells, Kevin Carlson, Affolder and Hunter. After a close two legs, it was Affolder who proved the deciding factor, dropping a 4:06 mile split to help put the national record in reach. Then it was Hunter bringing the baton home, crossing the finish line in 17:01.81. They broke their own record by 0.01 seconds.

Watch the 4xMile relay at NBNationalsIN.com.

When it came time for the 4x800 relay, Jacob Windle led off with Wells, Affolder and Hunter returning for their third race in two days. This time, however, the team ran with company. The Warrior Project of Weddington NC kept the race close. Running as the anchor, Hunter narrowly held off Kyle Durham of the Warrior Project to take the win in 7:40.49.

That time ranks third on the prep all-time list, a second behind the Jungle Track Club's mark from last year. The Warrior Project, running 7:40.65, stands fourth on the all-time list.

Watch the 4x800 relay on NBNationalsIN.com.

Editors’ Choice: Grant Holloway

The Jungle Track Club boys were a great choice by the DyeStat readers. However, this week the editors' award goes to another new national record holder, Grant Holloway.

Holloway entered the NCAA Division 1 Indoor Championships with an array of accolades to his name already, most notably as the collegiate record holder in the 60-meter hurdles, his strongest event indoors. This year, however, Holloway had added a new event, the 60 meters. He entered the meet as the collegiate leader at 6.51, which he ran in his first attempt at the flat race.

The meet started for Holloway with another event that he has shown skill in in his previous two years at Florida, the long jump. Holloway placed third with a leap of 26-1 (7.95m). He missed first place by less than an inch, despite taking only three jumps versus six for his competitors.

Holloway was able to follow up his long jump performance with prelim wins in the 60-meter hurdles and the 60 meters. His time of 7.44 in the hurdles broke the meet record. His 6.53 in the flat 60 was just off his personal best.

Returning to action on the second day of competition, Holloway opened his day with a statement race. Everything went right as he stormed to victory in the 60-meter hurdles, running 7.35. Not only did that break the meet record and his own collegiate record, but it broke the American record as well. It makes him the third-best performer of all-time and ranks him fourth on the all-time performance list, only 0.05 seconds behind the world record, held by Great Britain's Colin Jackson from 1994.

Following Holloway's historic performance in the hurdles, he followed with a win in the 60 meters, running a personal best 6.50. That raised his point total for the meet to 26 points. However, Holloway was not done yet. As a regular contributor to Florida's 4x400 relays, he had one race left.

Holloway went on to help Florida to a third-place finish (3:05.24) in the meet ending relay, adding another six points to the Florida team total. Including Holloway's share of the relay points, he contributed half of Florida's NCAA winning 55 points. By himself, he would have placed fifth in the meet, in a tie with his Florida teammates, an impressive feat.

Holloway's 27.5 points were the second-highest total by a male athlete at the NCAA Division 1 Indoor Championships, trailing only the 28 points accumulated by former Oregon standout Edward Cheserek in 2017.