Garrett Scantling moved to No. 3 on the U.S. all-time decathlon list, posting 8,867 points to win the USATF Combined Events Championships and lead the team for the world championships.
Scantling, who was fourth at the Tokyo Olympics, improved from eighth in American history by personal best to third behind Olympic gold medalists Ashton Eaton and Dan O’Brien. Scantling, who is now seventh on the all-time world list, passed Olympic or world champions Tom Pappas, Trey Hardee and Bryan Clay.
Scantling retired from track and field after missing the 2016 Olympics by one spot at trials. He had a brief stay with the Atlanta Falcons in a 2017 spring camp as a wide receiver before returning to Jacksonville, Florida, to work as a financial advisor. He returned to competition in 2020.
Scantling is joined on the team for July’s world championships in Eugene, Oregon, by University of Georgia junior Kyle Garland (8,720 points) and two-time Olympian Zach Ziemek (8,573), who like Scantling recorded personal bests by more than 100 points. Garland shattered his previous best by 524 points in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on Friday and Saturday.
USATF COMBINED EVENTS CHAMPS: Full Results
Anna Hall won the heptathlon with 6,458 points, a total that would have placed sixth at the Olympics. Last year, Hall crashed out of the Olympic Trials heptathlon in the opening 100m hurdles.
She’s joined on the world team by Olympic fifth-place finisher Kendell Williams, who earned a spot last year by topping the world season standings.
Third and fourth U.S. women’s spots are to-be-determined based on world rankings and/or athletes who get the world championships qualifying standard by June 26. Hall was the only woman to hit the standard in Fayetteville, though 10th-place finisher Erica Bougard also has it from a previous result.
In other track and field meets Saturday, two-time Olympic 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica clocked the fastest women’s 100m this early in a year ever — 10.67 seconds — to win at the Kip Keino Classic at altitude in Nairobi, Kenya.
The race’s other headliner, Olympic 200m silver medalist Christine Mboma of Namibia, pulled up midway through, tripped and fell to the track and was carried off on a stretcher.
Olympic gold medalist Marcell Jacobs of Italy withdrew before the men’s 100m due to stomach problems. Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala won in 9.85, the fastest time in the world this year, edging Olympic 100m silver medalist Fred Kerley by .07.
In an American Track League meet, Allyson Felix finished fourth in a 400m in 52.23 seconds in her first time racing the event this year.
Felix, in her farewell season, has not said publicly whether she will compete in the USATF Outdoor Championships next month, where it’s likely that the top eight in the 400m make the world team (top three individually, plus relay spots). Last year, the eighth-place finisher at Olympic Trials ran 50.84.
Emily Sisson, who finished 10th in the Olympic 10,000m, broke Sara Hall‘s American record in the half marathon by winning the national title in 67:11.
The track and field season continues Sunday with a Continental Tour meet at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium, featuring world 100m champion Christian Coleman and Olympic 400m hurdles silver medalist Rai Benjamin.
The top-level Diamond League season begins Friday in Doha.
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