Bulls track star Wise reaches world junior championships

Posted Jun 25, 2010 by Bill Ward

Updated Jun 25, 2010 at 01:34 PM

University of South Florida freshman Neamen Wise of Altamonte Springs earned a spot in the IAAF World Junior Championships by winning the USA Track and Field Junior National Outdoor Championships decathlon Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa.

Wise won the decathlon in thrilling style, taking the title with a lifetime best total of 7,300 points—just nine better than Kevin Lazas, a recent prep graduate from Brentwood, Tenn. The top two finishers in each event of the meet earned spots on the USA world squad, if they have the required performance standard.

The decathlon crown came down to the final event, the 1,500-meter run, where Wise started the race leading Lazas by 33 points. Wise needed to finish with a few seconds of Lazas and that’s exactly what he did, taking eighth place in 4:48.67 while Lazas took fifth in 4:44.69.

Considering Wise suffered a torn hamstring this season for the Bulls, Thursday’s victory was particularly impressive. Just a few weeks ago, the hamstring was still far from 100 percent and it prevented him from doing a lot of normal training, such as starts out of the blocks. Now, he’s off to the World Junior Championships, slated to start July 23 in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.

Wise led the USA Juniors meet from the outset after posting a person record in the 100 at 10.85 seconds for the top performance by all 16 competitors. He followed that with a mark of 23 feet, 5 inches in the long jump for second place overall, then threw 41-8 in the shot put. Next, he posted another PR with a 6-5 high jump and finished leading the first day by 63 points over Lazas after running 51.98 in the 400.

On the second day of the decathlon, Wise won the 100 hurdles in 14.50, placed second in the discus with another PR (136-8), pole vaulted 12-9 after nearly no-heighting the event and threw the javelin 168-11. That set up his dramatic finish in the 1,500.