Clark County native Kara Winger won her eighth women’s javelin title at the United States Track and Field Outdoor Championships on Thursday at Des Moines, Iowa.
Winger, the defending national champion competiting unattached, held the lead from her first throw of 186 feet, 7 inches among the 16 competitiors.
She increased the advantage with a throw of 188-11 on the fifth round, and, once the title was clinched, let her last one fly out to a season-best 206-3.
“The first five throws were not that great,” Winger said in an interview that was posted to YouTube.
But as for that last throw, it was the longest throw by an American this season.
“The pressure was off, I was the national champion, relaxed,” she said, knowing before her final throw she had won. “It’s just easy to let my arm be long and throw it further.”
That season-best mark easily topped the second-place distance of 185-6 by Avione Allgood of Florida. This was just her fourth competition of 2018. She had two third-place finishes in Germany, and was fifth at the Bislett Games in Oslo.
Winger, 32, is still thinking long term. At least a couple more years if possible.
“I’m just really focued on winning out until 2020,” she said. “That would be 10 titles total.”
Winger, a graduate of Skyview High School, won the 2017 national title with a best of 206-0. She also won national titles in 2014 and 2015, and four in a row from 2008-2011.
Also Thursday, Camas High grad Alexa Efraimson competed in the first round of the 1,500 meters, but did not advance out of qualifying.
Representing Nike/Athletics NW, Efraimson placed fifth in her heat with a time of 4 minutes, 15.90 seconds. She needed to finish in the top three of her heat to advance to the final or have the next three best times among the 30 competitors.
The slowest time of the next three runners not automatically qualifying was 4:08.62.
In other events Thursday:
Keturah Orji set a meet record in the triple jump with a leap of 47 feet, 10½ inches, highlighting the opening session.
Mike Rodgers, at 33 years old, set a world mark for 2018 in the 100 meters at 9.89 seconds in an opening round heat, just 0.04 seconds shy of his personal best.
Molly Huddle won the women’s 10,000 for a record fourth straight time, and Lopez Lomong took the men’s 10,000 in 28.58.38.
But it was the triple jump — which has proven to be uncharacteristically fallow for Team USA in international competition — that took center stage, with Orji and Tori Franklin turning the once-overlooked event into a riveting duel.
Orji, whose fourth-place finish at the 2106 Rio Games was the best-ever for an American, started with a stadium record of 47-0¾, only to have Franklin set a meet record at 47-6¼ about five minutes later.
Orji, who just graduated from Georgia, then broke Franklin’s recent USATF outdoor mark on her third jump.
The crowd rose and cheered after Franklin’s final jump, which looked like another meet record. But it was wind-aided and went for 47-7¾.
Nonetheless, having a pair of Americans perform so well two years before the next Olympics in Tokyo — and in a year where there’s no world championship to look forward to either — bodes well for the Americans moving forward.
“I know a lot of times when I was in high school people would be like ‘Oh, the U.S. triple jump isn’t strong,’” Orji said. “We’re just looking to bring a lot more attention to it.”
Sprinting star Sydney McLaughlin, 18, pulled out of the first round of the 400 after feeling tightness in her quad while warming up, according to USATF. McLaughlin, who in 2016 became the youngest U.S. track and field athlete to compete in the Olympics in 44 years, won the NCAA title in the 400 hurdles at Kentucky earlier this season before turning pro.
Huddle used what seemed like an effortless kick over the final two laps to finish in 31.52.32.
But perhaps the most fascinating runner in the field was Gwen Jorgensen, the 2016 Olympic triathlon winner who has transitioned to distance running with an eye on winning the gold medal in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics. Jorgensen was seventh out of 20 runners with a time of 32.24.09.
“Molly started to pick it up, and I just wasn’t able to cover that speed change,” Jorgensen said.
The first title of the meet went to Stanford’s Valarie Allman, who got the best of former Arizona State star Maggie Ewen with a winning discus throw of 208-6.
