The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Three Mountaineers take national titles
The Mountaineers ended the final day of competition Saturday, May 25 at the 2013 NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field National Championships by adding three more national champions. Vegard Olstad (So., Gjovik, Norway), Barbara Szabo (Jr., Budapest, Hungary) and Gabe Proctor (Sr., Corinth, Maine) all added national champion to their resumes.
Olstad, competing in the men’s 1,500-meter run, outpaced the competition and finished with a time of 3:55.26. Olstad is only the second Mountaineer to become national champ in the men’s 1,500 meters after Stephen Willis won in 1998. Olstad is also the first Mountaineer since Kris Berry in 2007 to become an All-American in the 1,500 meters.
Already the 2013 indoor national champion, Szabo took the 2013 outdoor women’s high jump title with relative ease. Szabo cleared 1.87 meters to earn her fourth women’s high jump national title and her first outdoor high jump title. Szabo’s mark also set a new facility record at Neta and Eddie DeRose ThunderBowl. Western State has won the outdoor women’s high jump national championship for the second consecutive year after Susan Jackson (Sr., Boulder, Colo.) won the 2012 title.
Proctor won his second title at the 2013 outdoor championships in the men’s 5,000-meter run. Proctor fended off challenges by American International’s Glarius Rop down the stretch to win with a time of 14:27.77, just short of breaking the facility record by 0.14 seconds. Proctor, who also won the men’s 10,000-meter run on Thursday, is only the second Mountaineer male in school history to win two outdoor track and field national titles in one year. Michael Aish also accomplished this feat by winning the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters in 2002.
As a team, the Western State men finished in fifth place with 36 points and the women finished tied for 19th with 15 points. Both teams combined for four individual national champions and seven All-Americans.
The finishes this weekend improved the Western State all-time totals for all sports in individual national champions to 105 and All-Americans to 924.
Mountaineer National Champions:
Gabe Proctor: Men’s 10,000- and 5,000-meter run
Vegard Olstad: Men’s 1,500-meter run
Barbara Szabo: Women’s high jump
Mountaineer All-Americans:
Gabe Proctor: Men’s 10,000- and 5,000-meter run
Vegard Olstad: Men’s 1,500-meter run
Barbara Szabo: Women’s high jump
Adam Sinda: Men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase
Trevor Blackman: Men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase
Tara Richardson: Women’s 10,000-meter run
