Dudarev on The Bowerman Pre-NCAA Championships watch list
NEW ORLEANS – For the third time this season, Kansas thrower Gleb Dudarev was among a list of the nation’s most elite NCAA Track & Field men’s athletes, as the sophomore was named to The Bowerman’s Pre-NCAA Outdoor Championships watch list, announced by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association on Monday.
The Bowerman, known as collegiate track & field’s highest honor and has been called “The Heisman Trophy of track & field” is awarded each year by the USTFCCCA to the top male and female collegiate athletes in NCAA track & field.
Dudarev is joined by nine other elite NCAA men’s track & field athletes on the Pre-NCAA Championships watch list, with Nathon Allen (Auburn), Rai Benjamin (Southern California), Elijah Hall (Houston), Grant Holloway (Florida), Josh Kerr (New Mexico), Justyn Knight (Syracuse), Chris Nilsen (South Dakota), Michael Norman (Southern California) and Michael Saruni (UTEP) all making the list.
The Vitebsk, Belarus native is the top men’s athlete in the NCAA in the hammer throw to this point of the season, holding the nation’s best mark of 78.04 meters (256-0 ft.).
Dudarev’s nation-leading throw was set at the Kansas Relays on April 21, where the sophomore not only broke his own school record for the second time in the 2018 season, but he also broke a 35-year-old meet record previously held by Yuri Tamm of the USSR by nearly 12 feet, and the Rock Chalk Park Facility Record.
The throw by Dudarev at the Kansas Relays proved to be the best mark by a collegiate athlete in-season since Georgia’s Andras Haklits threw for 78.63 meters (257-11 ft.) in 2002 and ranks him No. 5 on the all-time collegiate performers list.
Prior to the Kansas Relays, Dudarev had only competed once this outdoor season, at the Sun Angel Classic in Tempe, Arizona. In his season opener, Dudarev broke his school record that he set as a freshman with a throw of 74.35 meters (243-11 ft.) to win the event.
Since Dudarev’s nation-leading performance, he competed at the Big 12 Championship in Waco, Texas, where he won his second-straight conference hammer throw title while breaking Baylor’s Clyde Hart Track & Field Stadium facility record with a throw of 72.37 meters (237-5 ft.), and at the NCAA West Preliminary Round, where he was the West’s top finisher in the hammer with a mark of 73.09 meters (239-9 ft.), which made him the No. 3 performer in the history of the meet.
Dudarev will compete for a national title in the hammer throw at the 2018 NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon on Wednesday, June 6 at 2 p.m. PDT (4 p.m. CDT). Kansas has a total of 16 entries at the NCAA Championships, which are scheduled to run June 6-9 at Hayward Field.
ESPNU will broadcast the men’s semifinals on Wednesday, with coverage starting at 4:30 p.m. PDT (6:30 CDT), and ESPN2 will cover the women’s semifinals on Thursday, June 7, starting at 4 p.m. PDT. The men’s finals on Friday, June 8 will be broadcast on ESPN, starting at 5:30 p.m. PDT, and the women’s finals will air at 3:30 p.m. PDT on June 9 on ESPN. ESPN3 will cover all field and combined events, with the live stream available via WatchESPN.com.
FOLLOW
KUAthletics.com: The official online source for Kansas Athletics, Williams Education Fund contributions, tickets, merchandise, multimedia, photos and much, much more.
