High School and Professional Athletes 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: Matthew Boling

With 56.64 percent of the vote, Matthew Boling won our Readers’ Choice vote, beating Olivia Gruver with her second-place tally of 21.68 percent.

The high school senior from Strake Jesuit TX in Houston produced top performances at the 92nd Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays.

His weekend started in the long jump. He opened the competition with a leap of 25-7.50 (7.81m), but it was wind-aided with a +2.4m/s tailwind. The maximum wind allowed is +2.0m/s.

On Boling's second attempt, he jumped out to a distance of 26-3.50 (8.01m) with a legal wind of +1.8m/s. It was the longest prep jump in nine years and moved him up to seventh on the prep all-time performer list. Boling passed his remaining attempts.

With Boling's big long jump mark in the books, he turned his attention to the track. That included winning the 100 meters in a wind-aided 10.20, the fastest all-conditions 100-meter time in the country so far this season. The following wind of +2.2m/s was just over the allowable limit, showing he is likely capable of  running similarly in less windy conditions. Boling ran 10.21 in the prelims with an even stronger tailwind.

He already owns the fastest wind-legal time in the country at 10.22. He also owns the fastest prep 200-meters in the country at 20.58.

Boling also anchored Strake Jesuit to a win in the 4x100 relay, making him three times a winner. It was a photo-finish with Duncanville TX as both teams were timed in 40.86.

Editors’ Choice: Joshua Cheptegei and Hellen Obiri

There were many great performances this week. The DyeStat readers made a great choice in selecting Boling. However, other athletes are deserving of recognition. Washington's Olivia Gruver broke Sandi Morris' collegiate record in the pole vault with her clearance of 15-6.50 (4.73m) at the Stanford Invitational. Also at Stanford, Emily Sisson moved up to third on the U.S. all-time performer list with her 30:49.57 win in the 10,000 meters as she prepares to race the London Marathon at the end of the month.

However, this week the editors' award will be split between the two senior race winners at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships held in Aarhus, Denmark. Before Saturday's event, it was the course that garnered most people's attention, as the course was set up to be far more difficult than any major cross country championship course in recent history.

Despite the difficulty of the course, the athletes who prevailed are deserving of attention. For Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda, his four-second victory in the senior men's race was one of redemption. Two years ago, in front of a home crowd, Cheptegei held a large lead going into the final lap over defending champion, Geoffrey Kamworor of Kenya. That lead not only disintegrated in the final lap, but the final half mile proved to almost be Cheptegei's undoing. Out of gas, he struggled home in 30th.

Two years later, Cheptegei used a big surge on the final lap to pull away from both Kamworor and fellow Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, and take the win.

The course also proved to be no match for Kenya's Hellen Obiri in the women's senior race. She used her track speed over the final section of the course to secure a two-second victory. In winning, she became the first senior woman to win global titles indoors (3,000 meters, 2012), outdoors (5,000 meters, 2017) and in cross country.

Obiri plans to return to the track and may not attempt to defend her cross country title when the IAAF World Cross Country Championships return in two years. Before she makes that decision, however, she will attempt to defend her 2017 IAAF World Outdoor Championships 5,000-meter win.