Purdue in 3rd Place at NCAA Track Championships

Let's take a moment to honor one of Purdue's best athletes ever. No, it is not Drew Brees or Rick Mount. I am talking about thrower Chukwuebuka Enekwechi. Yesterday he closed out a fantastic Purdue career with two more 1^st team All-America honors at the NCAA Track & Field Championships. That brought him to eight for his illustrious career as he turns his sights on trying to qualify for Rio later this summer.

In the hammer throw big Chuk placed sixth with a throw of 69.74 meters. That scored Purdue three points for the meet. In the shot put, his final event, his last throw of 20.37 meters got Purdue eight more points as he finished as national runner-up to Virginia's Filip Mihaljevic.

Now, about the Olympics: Enekwechi can represent Nigeria (I think) because of his heritage. In the shot put he is already extremely close to the 20.50 minimum qualification standard. His 20.37 at the NCAA meet matched his own school record, so if he can find an additional 0.13 meters he could be off to Rio in August. When combined with the indoor meet he was a four-time All-American this year alone.

He also gave Purdue 11 points for the team championship, which is good enough for third place right now behind Oregon (19) and Arkansas (16). Here are how some of the other Purdue athletes did:

Men's 4x400 meter relay -€” Purdue was 6^th after the preliminary heats and qualified for the finals. Nicholas parks, Kyle Webb, Kendal Frederick, and Shawndail McLaren qualified with a time of 3:05.95, roughly three seconds behind top seeded Florida. This will net Purdue some more points towards the team title.

Men's 4x100 meter relay -€” Gerald McGee, Malcolm Dotson, Webb, and Parks combined to finish 17^th in the prelims for this relay in 40.04 seconds. Only the top 8 reach the final.

Men's 400 meter hurdles -€” Obokhare Ikpefan just missed the finals by finishing 11^th in 50.82 seconds.

Men's 400 meters -€” Parks also ran in the 400 individually and was 24^th in a time of 47.56 seconds.