BATON ROUGE — When the LSU track and field team’s 4×400-meter relay team crossed the finish line at the Randal Tyson Track Center at the NCAA Indoor Championships on Saturday evening, they would have been content to know they simply won the NCAA title. Posting the fastest time in the world would just be icing on the cake.
That’s exactly what happened, however. The Tigers’ winning time of 3 minutes 4.44 seconds ended up being not only the fastest time in the NCAA this year, but the fastest time in the world as the indoor season closed this past weekend.
The time posted by the Tigers was faster than the winning mark at this weekend’s IAAF World Championships in Lisbon, Portugal, where Poland won the event with a time of 3:04.47.
The group of Robert Parham, Lueroy Colquhoun, Pedro Tunon and Alleyne Francique gave LSU its first title in the event, and ultimately, its first NCAA Indoor team title, as the Tigers edged TCU by a single point.
Parham opened with a 46.74 opening leg, while Colquhoun followed with a 46.00 split, Tunon ran a 46.49 third leg and Francique closed with a blazing 44.98 anchor leg to catch and pass the anchor from relay runner-up Baylor.
“It just goes to show that competition can bring out the best in someone,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “Expectations are a big part of athletics. When you go into a meet expecting to do well, it brings out the best in you. I think they would have run however fast they had to to win that race, they knew what was at stake.”
The Tigers’ time was the second fastest in NCAA history and broke LSU’s school record in the event by nearly two seconds. The previous record of 3:06.43 had stood for six years. The relay has the opportunity to continue to develop, as Parham and Tunon are only freshmen, while Colquhoun and Francique are only juniors.