DES MOINES, Iowa – In a men’s long jump competition that ended 21 hours, 29 minutes after it began Thursday afternoon, LSU sophomore Damar Forbes finally captured his silver medal with his improbable national runner-up finish in the conclusion of a suspended second day of competition at Drake Stadium at the 2011 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
With only four jumpers needing to take their sixth and final jump of the competition on Thursday evening on the Drake Stadium infield, severe thunderstorms suspended the action before Friday’s conclusion.
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The competitors returned for a 3 p.m. CDT conclusion with Ngonidzashe Makusha of Florida State taking the lead into the final round of jumps with his top mark on Thursday at 27 feet, 6 ¾ inches. Forbes posted the second-best mark of the day at 27-0, while Florida’s Will Claye (26-11) followed Forbes in third place and Texas’ defending champion Marquise Goodwin (26-9 ¼) remained in fourth place.
Friday’s conclusion was certainly anticlimactic following Thursday’s fireworks. On their final attempts of the competition, Goodwin took an awkward step near the board and jumped 19-9, Claye fouled on his last jump and both Forbes and Makusha passed their final attempts to lock up the top two spots.
Makusha passed his jump in anticipation of his appearance in the 100-meter dash final to run later Friday, while Forbes passed his last jump citing soreness in his hamstrings following Thursday’s action.
“I warmed up because I wanted to be ready in case something happened,” Forbes said. “I was a little tight today after competing for so long last night. Both of my hamstrings are a little sore today. But I still wanted to make sure I was ready to go if I needed to take my last jump. When you have so long to wait on something like this, you just have to tell yourself to stay calm and not worry about what might happen.”
The Tigers added their third member to the 27-foot club in the men’s long jump during Thursday’s action, as Forbes was destined for an improbable finish while securing his first career All-America honor.
Forbes actually held the lead in the competition after two flights of qualifying when jumping a wind-aided 26 feet, 9 inches (+2.6) on his third attempt. His prelim performance not only won the first flight, but held up as the top qualifying mark as he prepared for the nine-man final.
Forbes was then passed in the fourth round of jumps by both Makusha (27-6 ¾) and Claye (26-11) for the top two spots as he prepared to take his first jump in the finals.
That’s when Forbes soared 27-0 with a legal tailwind of 0.6 meters per second to overtake Claye and leap back into second place in the competition. His fourth-round jump eclipsed his previous personal record of 26-1 ¾ set in a fifth-place finish nearly one month ago at the SEC Championships. His previous 2011 best of 26-1 ¾ was the No. 11-ranked performance in the country heading into the NCAA Championships.
Forbes’ effort of 27-0 also moved him into the No. 3 position on LSU’s all-time outdoor performance list, trailing fellow 27-footers John Moffitt (27-9 ½) and Llewellyn Starks (27-0 ½).
“It was surreal,” Forbes said of his 27-0 jump. “I knew it was big because the crowd got really loud when it happened. You can always feel it when you hit a big one. I knew it was a big one, but I couldn’t tell if it was far enough to get the lead back. It’s still a great feeling. We need those points.”
Forbes added eight points to the nine points secured in the hammer throw with senior Walter Henning and junior Michael Lauro to give the Tigers 17 points in Thursday’s field event action.
Henning, the defending NCAA champion in the event, threw a series-best 226-5 on his final throw for the day to lock up six points with a third-place finish. Lauro added three points with a sixth-place finish when setting a new personal record with a mark of 221-3 on his fourth throw of the competition.
Thursday was the end of an era for the Tigers as Henning made his final throw in a storied career with the program while earning his sixth All-America honor in three seasons in Baton Rouge.
Henning wraps up his collegiate career as a three-time NCAA champion and six-time SEC champion with one of the most prolific careers for a thrower in the history of LSU track and field.
“I nearly threw a seasonal best, so I can’t be too disappointed with that,” Henning said. “The goal was for me to finish in the top three, and I was glad that we were able to get two places. We scored nine points for the team after scoring 10 points in this event last year, so it was almost the same for us. To throw the way I did the entire outdoor season and to throw my best the last three meets, I was excited about that.”
Their 17 points moved the Tigers into third place in the team standings following the long jump with only five of 21 events scored during this year’s NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
Friday also saw the conclusion of the suspended semifinal rounds of the men’s and women’s 4×400-meter relays as athletes returned to the track at 11 a.m. in an attempt to qualify for Saturday’s finals.
After running 3 minutes, 32.88 seconds to take third place in the second semifinal heat on Thursday night, the qualifying for the women’s 4×400-meter relay was suspended with the third section on the track ready to run. Despite wrapping up the semifinal round with the seventh-fastest time overall following the Friday conclusion, the Lady Tigers failed to advance to the final on time as the third-place and fourth-place clubs in the third semifinal in Florida (3:31.06) and North Carolina (3:31.67) were the at-large qualifiers.
The Tigers followed by winning the first of three men’s semifinal heats with a time of 3:04.38 as junior Robert Simmons, junior Ade Alleyne-Forte, sophomore Caleb Williams and junior Riker Hylton joined to run the sixth-fastest time overall in the final semifinal event on the track of the NCAA Championships.
The Lady Tigers will have an opportunity to score big points on Friday as they line up in three track finals with the 400-meter hurdles at 6:35 p.m., 100-meter dash at 6:55 p.m. and 800-meter run at 7:10 p.m. They will also feature scoring opportunities in the pole vault at 5:25 p.m. and triple jump at 5:35 p.m.