Area Athletes Have Struggle

Idaho’s Frank Bruder settled for 12th place in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase at Friday’s NCAA Track and Field championships.

Bruder finished in 9 minutes, 6.42 seconds. Bruder, who finished sixth last year, came out of Wednesday’s qualifying with the fourth-best time.

Washington State’s Leo Slack is in seventh place in the 17-man decathlon field after the first day. Slack, a sophomore, scored 3,957 points in five events.

Auburn junior Victor Houston leads with 4,174 points. Pre-meet favorite Chad Smith of Tennessee pulled a leg muscle in the first event, the 100, and dropped out.

Slack had no personal improvement in any event. He placed sixth in the 100 (11.04), third in the long jump (23-10-1/4), tied for 10th in the high jump (6-5-1/2), ninth in the shot put (44-3/4) and 14th in the 400 (51.25).

Slack’s halfway total is nearly 200 points less than his first-day total of the Pacific-10 Conference championships.

WSU’s Dominique Arnold won his heat of the men’s 110 high hurdles semifinals in a wind-aided 13.39 seconds. Arnold, one of eight advancing to today’s finals, ran 13.32 in Thursday’s preliminaries - tops in the field.

Also on the third day of the meet, Obadele Thompson of UTEP, a rising star among the world’s young sprinters, pulled up lame in the 200 semifinals and had to drop out.

The 20-year-old from Barbados, whose wind-aided 9.69 earlier this year was the fastest 100 under any conditions, strained his right groin while winning his 100 semifinal heat in 10.17.

He tried to run the 200 and had a big lead after the turn, but pulled up abruptly 60 meters from the finish.

He pulled his left hamstring while favoring his right leg because of the groin injury.

Until the injury, today’s 100 final, which includes UCLA’s Ato Boldon and Kentucky’s Tim Harden, figured to be the premiere event of the four-day competition.

Balazs Kiss of Southern California won his fourth NCAA hammer championship at 265 feet, 3 inches, the longest throw in the world this year.

The only other athletes to win four NCAA championships in one event were Steve Prefontaine of Oregon in the 5,000 (1970-73), Suleiman Nyambui of UTEP in the 10,000 (1979-82), Scott Neilson of Washington in the hammer (1976-79) and Suzy Favor of Wisconsin in the 1,500 (1987-90).

, DataTimes