Pickler Named USATF Athlete Of The Week

March 7-8, 2009
Eddie Smith Field House, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC

Jake Arnold (Tucson, AZ) and 2008 Olympian Diana Pickler (Austin, TX) each won their respective events at the 2009 USATF Indoor Combined Events Championships held March 7th and 8th at the Eddie Smith Field House on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. USATF named Diana Pickler Athlete of the Week for the week of March 9th following her outstanding performance.

Arnold came into the competition looking to defend the Heptathlon title he won last year and he finished the first 4 evens with a total score of 3144 points, ending Day 1 atop the leader board. He started off Day 2 with the second fastest time in the 60m Hurdles and his clearance of 16' 2 3/4" in the Pole Vault was almost a foot higher than any of the other competitors. A solid run in the 1000m, the last event in the 2-day competition, pushed Arnold's 2-day point total to 5748 points. Arnold, one of 3 new members to the ASICS elite athlete roster for 2009, was a 2-time NCAA Champion and All-American in the Decathlon while at the University of Arizona.

2008 Olympian Diana Pickler (Austin ,TX) also came into the competition looking to win her second consecutive Pentathlon Indoor Championship. Pickler started her day by winning the 60m hurdles, followed with the second best marks in the Long and High Jumps to win the competition with a score of 4391 points, 71 points better than second place finisher Sharon Day. Sharon Day (San Luis Obispo, CA), who also competed in Beijing as a High Jumper, dominated the High Jump and posted the second best marks in the Shot Put and 800m to record a new personal best with a point total of 4320 points in only her second career indoor Pentathlon. To round out the podium spots, Julie Pickler (Manhattan, KS) finished in third place with a total score of 4292 points for the five events contested giving Team ASICS a sweep of the top 3 spots in the final standings. Julie Pickler won the Shot Put and ran the fastest 800m time of the day but could not overcome a below average high jump in order to overtake Diana Pickler and Sharon Day in the points standing.