Donovan Kilmartin's comeback (Texas)

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.statesman.com/sports/content ... elays.html

Kilmartin's comeback
Decathlete seeking perfect 10
By John Maher
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

As a decathlete, Donovan Kilmartin competes in 10 track and field events and also must excel at an 11th discipline — playing catchup.

That's what Kilmartin was doing Tuesday. He rose at 6 a.m. to work on a project for his graduate studies in petroleum engineering while he also was preparing for his first competition for the University of Texas in more than a year, the Texas Relays.

"It's not as if he's been sitting around and getting rusty," said Mario Sategna, UT assistant men's track coach. "He's ready to go."

Last outdoor season Kilmartin redshirted, not competing for UT and also not using up his final semester of eligibility. That helped him to graduate from Texas and then start graduate school there while still on scholarship. It also set him up for an outdoor season that could culminate in the U.S. Olympic trials and possibly the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Although he didn't run, throw or jump this past indoor season for Texas, Kilmartin did compete on his own, most notably finishing fifth in the heptathlon at the IAAF's world indoor championships in Valencia, Spain, in early March. During that 10-day trip, he also managed to take in some local sights, including Europe's largest aquarium, and the Saint Mary of Valencia Cathedral, which dates to the 13th century and is home to a chalice some believe to be the Holy Grail.

"When I was over there I was having a blast. Then I came back and saw how much homework I was behind in," Kilmartin said.

Sategna added, "Having an opportunity to compete at the world indoors was great, but we had to back off some of the training aspects. Indoors you are not running the 1,500 and 400 meters."

Sategna said a professional decathlete might spend five or six hours daily training in the various events and receiving recuperative treatments to stay healthy. Kilmartin has to try to cram that work into the NCAA-allowed 20 hours per week and balance his training with a challenging academic load. He has become quite good, he said, at catching up.

Kilmartin has been competing in track and field for 16 years, about two thirds of his life.

"I thought I was a sprinter, but I soon found out I wasn't. I got beaten badly a couple of times," he said. He began trying other events and found that he was good in almost all of them.

Kilmartin was a prodigy in high school, good enough in the high jump, long jump, pole vault and 110-meter hurdles to win multiple state titles in each event for Eagle High School in Idaho. He also set national high school records for the decathlon and heptathlon.

The heptathlon has been his forte in NCAA competition, as he's the only male ever to win three NCAA titles in that event. Ironically, Kilmartin said that when he first thought about redshirting last season, he was thinking of skipping the indoor season. He ended up winning his third NCAA heptathlon title, but UT could have used him more this indoor season. Without Kilmartin, the Longhorns recently tied for their best finish at the championships — third place, 10 points behind winner Arizona State.

"It would have been nice to win a national championship. It's 10 points for first, and I think that I could have won. It would have been a different ball game, but you can't always second-guess yourself," Kilmartin said.

So far, Kilmartin's best placing in the NCAA decathlon was fourth in his sophomore season. Two years ago at the Texas Relays, he had a personal best of 7,897 points in a meet highlighted by teammate Trey Hardee's NCAA record of 8,465 points.

Of this week, Kilmartin said, "My first goal is to stay healthy." After that he'd like to achieve 7,500 points, the automatic qualifying standard for the NCAA championships. Another 100 points beyond that total will earn him a guaranteed spot in the U.S. Olympic trials, and up to the top three finishers there could head to Beijing.

Of the Olympic trials, Kilmartin said, "I think Bryan Clay is the frontrunner. He looks sharp. He won the indoors. Second place could be Tom Pappas or Trey Hardee. Third place is wide-open. I could name 10 people that could make it."

At 6 feet, 2 inches, Kilmartin is three inches shorter than both Hardee and Pappas, and height can be an advantage in throwing and jumping events. However, Sategna said, "Bryan Clay isn't 6 feet tall and if he puts one together, he could break the world record. You're looking to be consistent in 10 events."

Kilmartin's strongest events are the pole vault, the long jump and the high jump. He will turn 24 this year and said decathletes typically don't hit their peak until they're 27. He's unsure, however, whether he'll continue in the sport beyond this year.

"It depends on what avenues are open," he said. "If someone wants to pay me $200,000 to play hopscotch then I'll be playing hopscotch next year."

[Sebes]

Hopscotch??? Lame.

[jcoover]

looked like Donovan had a pretty good one goin this weekend at texas relays til he NH'ed in the vault..