Dudarev named to The Bowerman's pre-conference championship watch list
NEW ORLEANS – Kansas sophomore Gleb Dudarev was one of ten men’s athletes listed on the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association’s pre-conference championship watch list for The Bowerman, announced by the organization on Thursday.
The Bowerman – known as collegiate track & field’s highest honor – is awarded each year by the USTFCCCA to the top male and female collegiate athletes in NCAA track & field.
This is Dudarev’s first time on the official 10-person watch list, joining USC’s Rai Benjamin and Michael Norman, Houston’s Elijah Hall, Florida’s Grant Holloway, New Mexico’s Josh Kerr, Syracuse’s Justyn Knight, Texas A&M’s Ioannis Kyriazis, South Dakota’s Chris Nilsen and UTEP’s Michael Saruni.
“Gleb is a great competitor and he has done really well for us this year,” head coach Stanley Redwine said. “It is great to see him amongst the quality of athletes he is being evaluated against. Hopefully he will continue to do well and make the list of finalists for the award.”
The Vitebsk, Belarus native made headlines at the Kansas Relays earlier this season with a career-best mark of 78.04 meters (256-0 ft.) in the hammer throw. The mark was the best in-season mark by a collegiate athlete since Georgia’s Andras Haklits threw for 78.63 meters (257-11 ft.) in 2002.
With the throw, Dudarev broke his own school record of 74.35 meters (243-11 ft.), set at the Sun Angel Classic earlier this season, as well as the Kansas Relays meet record and the Rock Chalk Park facility record. He ranks No. 5 on the collegiate all-time performers list with his record-breaking mark, No. 1 in the NCAA this season and No. 6 in the world this year.
Dudarev is not scheduled to compete this weekend at the Ward Haylett Invitational in Manhattan, Kansas, but will likely be entered in the hammer throw at the Big 12 Outdoor Track & Field Championship in Waco, Texas, May 11-13.
This is the first time a Kansas track & field athlete has been named to The Bowerman watch list since Michael Stigler was named a semifinalist for the award in 2015.
The USTFCCCA will unveil two more watch lists this season (May 17, June 5) before releasing the list of semifinalists on June 14 and the finalists on June 21. The Bowerman will be presented at the 2018 USTFCCCA convention December 17-20, in San Antonio, Texas.
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