BATON ROUGE — LSU All-American sprinter Richard Thompson capitalized on an outstanding weekend on the track by being named the Southeastern Conference Men’s Track Athlete of the Week as announced by the league office Tuesday.
Thompson, who is currently ranked No. 4 in the country in the 60-meter dash according to the latest Trackwire Dandy Dozen, clocked back-to-back NCAA provisional qualifying times to take first place in the event at the Modrall Sperling Lobo Invitational in Albuquerque, N.M., on Saturday.
The junior from Mount Hope, Trinidad, ran the second-fastest 60-meter time in school history and the third best time clocked by a collegiate athlete this season with an altitude-adjusted time of 6.67 in the final heat, passing former football stars Devery Henderson and Chris Cummings on the school’s all-time list.
Thompson’s personal best effort is a new facility record at the Albuquerque Convention Center and is just a split-second off that of former LSU great Kelly Willie‘s school record time of 6.66 clocked in the preliminary round at the NCAA Indoor Championships a year ago. He has now posted NCAA provisional qualifying times and personal bests in three consecutive races.
In addition to his stellar performance in the 60 meters, Thompson took fourth place in the 200 meters at the Lobo Invitational with an indoor personal best time of 21.30 seconds, which is the 10th-ranked time on the school’s all-time indoor performance list.