Kinder Wins by Six Points in Olympic Decathlon Trial

Gary Kinder, an assistant track coach at New Mexico, held off Tim Bright by six points to win the decathlon in the U.S. Olympic track and field trials Thursday.

Kinder completed the 2-day, 10-event competition with a career-best 8,293 points, just enough to beat Bright’s total of 8,287. Bright made it close by running the final event, the 1,500 meters, in 4 minutes 45.12 seconds. Kinder was 10.27 seconds slower, but he built up just enough of a margin by winning the ninth event, the javelin.

Kinder moved into the lead by throwing the javelin 217 feet 6 inches, compared with Bright’s 198-8.

Dave Johnson earned the other place on the Olympic team, accumulating a career-best 8,245 points.

Kinder set the stadium first-day decathlon record on Wednesday with 4,284 points, and held the lead through most of Thursday’s final five events.

He was out of the top spot only when Bright set an American decathlon record of 18-4 1/2 in the pole vault, the eighth event of the competition, to take a 20-point lead.

Bright, the 1983 NCAA Division II champion from Abilene Christian and the 1987 national champion, made up a 170-point deficit with his record vault, which surpassed his own record by 3 1/2 inches. The world decathlon pole vault record is 18-5 1/2 by Thierry Vigneron of France.

Bright failed to clear 19-0, a height never previously attempted by a decathlete.

After eight events, Bright had 6,893 points, 20 points ahead of Kinder.

But Kinder forged ahead again after the javelin, completing nine events with 7,706 points to Bright’s 7,639. Johnson was third with 7,526 points.

“I knew my first-night events were solid,” Kinder said. “After last night, I told myself to keep everything steady and come out and be consistent.

“Coming into this meet, the pressure is tenfold over any other meet. Now the pressure is off.”

Kinder acknowledged that he and the other American decathletes are far behind the world’s elite and he isn’t envisioning winning any medal at the Seoul Games.

“I’m not going with any expectations,” he said..

Finals were scheduled Thursday night in the pole vault and the women’s discus, as well as semifinals in the women’s 1,500 meters and men’s 5,000 meters, the second round of the women’s 100-meter high hurdles, round one in the men’s 1,500, and the invitational women’s 5,000 and triple jump.

The latter two events are not contested in the Olympic Games.

Kinder led the decathlon by 88 points over Johnson after Wednesday’s first five events.

He improved his advantage in Thursday’s first two disciplines, the 110-meter hurdles and the discus.

Kinder, third in the 1986 and 1987 national championships, was timed over the hurdles in 14.95 seconds, won the discus at 156-7 and vaulted 16-4 3/4.

Johnson, the 1986 national champion, ran the hurdles in 14.84, threw the discus 149-9, vaulted 15-5 and threw the javelin 221-5.

Bright, competing in his first decathlon this year, was timed in 14.40 in the hurdles and threw the discus 136-6.

During Wednesday’s competition, when the first three events were held in heavy rain and the high jump was moved indoors, Kinder set a first-day record for the Indiana University Track and Field Stadium with 4,284 points.

He also broke the stadium record for the decathlon shot put at 53-7, while Bruce Reid of Louisiana State set a stadium mark of 24-8 1/2 in the decathlon long jump.

Jim Connolly set an automatic record in the javelin at 234-2, because this was the first time the new javelin was used in the Trials.