EUGENE, Ore. — Mississippi State decathlete Peyton Bair won the national championship at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore. on Thursday, becoming the first American to win the event in a decade and just the seventh in history to double as heptathlon and decathlon champion in the same season.
“It feels awesome,” Bair said to the media after the win. “It’s something I’ve been working for for a long time. Just seeing my family, my wife and my coaches up there is something I’ll never forget.”
Bair began the competition by setting personal bests in the wind-legal long jump, 400-meter, and high jump, and set a new NCAA decathlon record in the 100-meter on the first day of the competition.
He followed up his good start to the competition with another strong performance on Thursday, with the 110-meter hurdles, javelin throw, discus and pole vault events. His javelin throw of 57.87 meters was another personal best, adding 706 points to his total tally and taking a 426-point lead over the closest competitor entering the final event.
In the 1500-meter run, Bair finished with a personal best time of 4:35.69, winning the event and finishing with 8,323 points, the 14th-highest in NCAA history and 10th highest in NCAA Championship history.
“I was happy with the Day 1 performance, but there were still five more events to do, only halfway done with the job, so I still had to stay focused,” Bair said. “I didn’t have the hurdle race that I wanted, but I was able to come back and throw a lot better than I have. I was happy with those performances.”
Bair caps an impressive junior campaign, which included the NCAA Indoor Heptathlon championship, First Team All-American honors and the USTFCCCA Men’s South Region Field Athlete of the Year award. This followed a sophomore campaign in which he finished as the runner-up in the decathlon and earned two All-American honors.
The runner-up finish a year ago stuck with Bair and fueled him to come back even stronger.
“I think there was a lot of motivation to go off in the offseason and put in some work so I could come back and be better this season.”
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