June 26, 2010
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DES MOINES, Iowa -- Joe Detmer is often in a class by himself when it comes to the decathlon 1,500 meters, and that fact helped the former Wisconsin All-American join an even more exclusive club Saturday.
Detmer closed out the 10-event decathlon at the 2010 USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships with a run of 4:06.63 in the 1,500, a performance that was the fastest time in the field by 33 seconds and propelled Detmer to a career-best final score of 8,009 points.
That placed Detmer third in the final standings and made him just the 66th American to surpass the 8,000-point plateau. It also helped Detmer improve on his 12th-place finish from last year’s USA championships.
Jake Arnold -- who won the 2007 NCAA title over Detmer -- used his performance in the 1,500 meters to finish with a score of 8,215 and slip past Tom Pappas for the national title. Pappas, a three-time Olympian and three-time world champion, finished second with 8,101 points.
“It was awesome,” Detmer said. “I had a phenomenal first day, didn’t really expect to be that good. I came out the second day, nothing spectacular, but had a solid day overall so I am really happy about it.”
After tallying a career-best 4,142 points on the opening day of the decathlon Friday, Detmer opened the second day of competition by running a wind-aided time of 14.88 in the 110-meter hurdles.
He followed that with a mark of 126 feet in the discus – his best performance in the event in two years – and slipped back to fourth place after seven events.
A strong showing in the pole vault moved Detmer back into the third spot, however, as he cleared 15 feet, 5 inches to boost his total by 819 points. Arnold had the best clearance in the field at 16-4 3/4.
Detmer held serve with his performance in the javelin, maintaining his third-place standing with a throw of 176-11. Arnold threw 199-7 for the top mark in the competition.
That set up the 1,500 meters and a runaway performance for Detmer. The collegiate record-holder in the event – he ran 4:04.11 on the way to a runner-up finish at the 2007 NCAA Outdoor Championships -- Detmer broke away from the field early and crossed the finish line 200 meters ahead of his nearest competitor.
Clemson’s Miller Moss was second-fastest at 4:39.66.
“It was good,” Detmer said. “I wasn’t really too concerned about the time, I just wanted to reach the 8,000 mark, so I just tried to be as close as I could be until about 1,100 (meters) and then kick, so it worked pretty well.”
Detmer, who was competing at Drake Stadium for the first time since winning the 2008 Drake Relays title, now turns his attention to the annual USA vs. Germany Thorpe Cup decathlon competition.
He has competed in the event each of the last three seasons, helping the U.S. to three-consecutive wins over their German counterparts. He finished second individually to Pappas last year after taking fifth in 2008 and third in 2007.
“I am probably going to head to the U.S.-Germany meet in about a month and just try to put a big score up for the team,” he said.
