Tobias Kaiser roars back from far behind to win the decathlon as the Penn Relays open
Janelle Perry of Ursuline College won the heptathlon on the womens side.
After finishing the first day of the Penn Relays decathlon in last place among the five contestants, Tobias Kaiser found a spark Wednesday that helped him move up the leader board and, eventually, on to the podium to pick up the watch awarded to the champion.
Kaiser, a graduate student at Queens University of Charlotte, N.C., rallied from a 441-point deficit at the start of the day and won the decathlon at Franklin Field over first-day leader D.J. Workcuff of Mount St. Mary's with a total of 6,437 points.
Sophomore Janelle Perry of Ursuline College in Pepper Pike, Ohio, competing in multi-event competitions for the first time this season, won the long jump and went on to victory in the heptathlon with a score of 4,583.
Kaiser, who is from Germany, said he started to pay attention to Workcuff's struggles as he cut into his lead. He picked up 225 points on Workcuff in the 110-meter hurdles, an event he runs regularly for his team, and took the lead for good after the eighth event, the pole vault, with a height of 13 feet, 7 inches.
"In the beginning, you're pretty much concerned about yourself," Kaiser said. "But when the competition gets close, if you want to win, it's about the others, not about you. So you wonder about the other's score and what you can do to best it."
Kaiser clinched his win with a personal-best throw of 189 feet in the javelin and finished with a time of 4 minutes, 47.23 seconds in the 1,500.
Workcuff, a junior, said he usually struggles on the second day of the decathlon but had some consolation in that his total of 6,126 was a personal best.
"It's a little painful right now, but it was good," he said.
Perry, who was a long jumper before learning the grueling heptathlon, said the nicer weather - no rain, very little wind - compared with Tuesday helped her performance. Starting the day with a 132-point lead, she opened with a long jump of 18-4 1/4 and never looked back, clocking 2:28.38 in the 800, the last event.
"This is new to me, but I think I'm getting it down pretty quickly," said Perry, from Akron, Ohio. "I never sprinted until my coach told me I needed to start sprinting. So I moved over from being a jumper to now an 800-meter runner. What are the odds?
"I love doing this. It's a love-hate relationship, but it's mostly love."
USA vs. the World
USA Track and Field announced the complete pools of U.S. runners for Saturday's USA vs. The World competition.
In addition to Rio Olympic gold medalists English Gardner (Eastern High, Voorhees), Natasha Hastings and Morolake Akinosun, eight members of the U.S. team from last weekend's IAAF World Relays will compete, including three gold medalists: Hastings (women's 4x400), LeShon Collins (men's 4x100) and former Penn State runner Casimir Loxson (men's 4x800).
Other runners who have competed previously at Penn include Wallace Spearmon, Bryshon Nellum, Calvin Smith, Miki Barber, and Kimberlyn Duncan.
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