BYU’s Ben Barton wins decathlon national championship, Jane Hedengren falls short of title

BYU’s Ben Barton, a 6-foot-5 senior from Michigan, won the decathlon at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships Thursday night and did so in dramatic fashion, with the competition being settled in the 10th and final event of the two-day competition.

A short time later, Jane Hedengren, the sensational freshman from Provo, stepped onto the track as a big favorite to win the 10,000-meter run, but it wasn’t to be.

After leading the field the last half of the 25-lap race, she was passed by two rivals and finished third.

Back to Barton, after nine events in the decathlon, he found himself trailing Louisville’s Kenneth Byrd by 50 points, with Louisville’s Luuke Pelkmans just 201 points behind him.

The last event was the 1,500-meter run, a strong event for Pelkmans. To win the overall competition, Barton had to beat Byrd by a little more than seven seconds and finish within about 13 seconds of Pelkman.

Barton labored visibly from start to finish, but he finished about nine seconds ahead of Byrd and nine seconds behind Pelkmans to claim the decathlon title.

It was close. Barton won by a mere nine points. He finished with a score of 8,169 points — the second-highest score ever by a BYU athlete — followed by Byrd with 8,160 points and Pelkmans with 8,079 points.

Barton led the field at the end of the first day Wednesday, winning the 100-meter dash in 10.65, the high jump at 6 feet, 11 ¾ inches and the 400-meter dash in 47.25 and finishing third in the long jump at 24-3 ½ and 13th in the shot put at 44-0 ¾.