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Horns Report: Longhorns starting to appear on Olympic team rosters around the world
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AUSTIN (KXAN) — On this week's Horns Report, we're focusing on Olympic sports and some Longhorns could make a big name for themselves in Paris coming up.
Texas decathlete Leo Neugebauer rewrote the NCAA record book in the multi-event discipline, crushing his collegiate record to win his second consecutive outdoor title with 8,961 points at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. Not only did the performance easily win another NCAA title for him, it was the sixth-highest score ever at any level and would have won the 2023 World Athletics Championship meet in Budapest, Hungary.
He set the world record in the discus as a decathlete with a throw of 189 feet, 4 inches and reset his record in the shot put in multi-events to 57-3.5. For his efforts, Neugebauer was named the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's national outdoor field athlete of the year, becoming the second Longhorn man to win it after Ryan Crouser claimed it in 2014. Neugebauer also won the indoor season's field athlete of the year award.
Neugebauer is set to compete in the decathlon for his native Germany.
Ackelia Smith is gunning to represent Jamaica in Paris. She won the long and triple jumps at the NCAA outdoor championships earlier in June and will try to make the Olympics during the Jamaican trials June 27-30.
At the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in Indianapolis, former and current Longhorn swimmers qualified for Paris. Former Texas swimmer Carson Foster won the 400-meter individual medley Sunday with a time of 4:07.64, almost two seconds ahead of runner-up Chase Kalisz.
Sophomore Aaron Shackell, who transferred to Texas from Cal after his redshirt freshman year, was the first swimmer to make the Olympic team after his win in the 400 freestyle.