Des Moines, Iowa (June 7, 2012)—Senior Tom FitzSimons earned Second Team All-America honors after finishing in 13th place in the decathlon at the 2012 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships held at Drake Stadium.
FitzSimons totaled 7,547 points in the two-day event to earn 13th place in the field of 24 competitors. He closed out the competition in strong fashion, winning the 1,500m run in a time of 4:10.81 for 875 points, moving up four spots in the standings in the process.
He opened the second day with a time of 15.20 seconds for 825 points in the 110m hurdles. He followed with a throw of 38.47m (126' 2") in the discus for 634 points before adding 790 points with his pole vault of 4.60m (15' 1"). In the javelin, he had a toss of 55.77m (182' 11") for another 674 points.
Yesterday, FitzSimons opened the decathlon by scoring 856 points in the 100m dash after posting the eighth-fastest time in the field of 24 at 11.02 seconds. In the long jump, he had a leap of 6.58m (21' 7.25") for 716 points while he had a toss of 12.12m (39' 9.25") for 616 points in the shot put. He added 687 points in the high jump (1.87m, 6' 1.5") before closing the day strong with the sixth-best time in the 400m dash (48.70) for 876 points.
Boise State's Kurt Felix took first place with 8,062 points, followed by Texas-Arlington's Romain Martin (7,956), Kevin Lazas of Arkansas (7,955), Gonzalo Barroilhet of Florida State (7,952) and Gunnar Nixon of Arkansas (7,892).
This is the second consecutive season that FitzSimons has competed in the decathlon at the NCAA Championships. Last year, he earned honorable mention All-America honors after finishing in 19th place with a score of 7,364 points.
The Mount has a storied history in the decathlon, including Trond Skramstad winning both the NCAA Division I and Division II decathlons in 1982.
The Mount has also had five others win the NCAA Division II decathlon. The list includes Barry Stebbins (1975, 1976), Thoams Delmoor (1978), Gudmund Olsen (1980, 1981), William Motti (1984, 1985) and Robert Ekpete (1986).
In addition, current Mount track and field head coach Jim Stevenson was an All-American in the Division I decathlon in 1993 while Rob Pendergist was a two-time All-American in the Division I decathlon (1992, 1994).
