The Decathlon resumes at noon, CDT, with event 6 (110 Meter Hurdles). That will be followed by Discus, Pole Vault, Javelin, and finally, the dreaded 1500 Meters.

Scott Filip enters the day in 6th place.

He runs 15.00 in the 110m hurdles, which was 13th. He is now in 8th place.

Just 12th in the discus, to move him down to 9th overall. But, the pole vault is next, and that is a big event for him.

Post #5555.

Scott with 4.55 meters (14' 11") in the pole vault. He moves to 10th overall.

He was 13th in the javelin, and is barely holding on to 10th.

The interesting battle will be for spot #3 on the team. After a disastrous javelin, Jeremy Taiwo falls 87 points behind Garrett Scantling of Georgia. Taiwo was on the U.S. team last year.

FYI: 87 points translates to about 12.5 seconds (approximately 60 meters) that Taiwo will have to finish ahead of Scantling in the final event, the 1500 meters. That's a really tall order.

Scott was 5th in the 1500 with 4:43.08.

So I'm following the men's long jump finals online and while it's a really good (and interesting) competition, I just don't understand at all what happened.

Jeffrey Henderson wins it with an outstanding (windy) jump of 28-2 1/4.
Jarrion Lawson is 2nd with a legal jump of 28-1 3/4, which I believe is the first legal 28-foot jump in the world in 7 years.

Now here is where it gets interesting...

Will Claye and Marquis Dendy both tie for the third best mark at 27-7 1/2. Dendy, the top rated American (#4 in the world rankings) is fourth however to Claye's third place since Claye has a better 2nd jump. But Dendy for some reason passes on his final two jumps and that's the part I can't figure out.

Either he was hurt, or else he got some horrible information from his coaches and he thought he was third. Or maybe the results are wrong, and he was third? Otherwise, that was a horrible decision by him if he was indeed healthy enough to jump on his final two tries.

ETA - okay there's another scenario and this is why it unfolded the way it did. Dendy goes to Rio because he has a legal Olympic qualifying standard (8.15 meters) and Claye does not (even though he had two windy jumps of more than 8.15 meters tonight - he had 8.38 and 8.42 meter windy jumps). A stupid rule IMO because you can't control wind conditions and when you're jumping 8.40 meters without a true gale, it should count for something. Plus Dendy shows a total lack of class by passing on his last two jumps. Or maybe it's not a total lack of class but a combination of bad sportsmanship and a bit of bad coaching as it wouldn't have taken much for Claye to get a legal jump of 8.15 on his last jump.

This story says Dendy did get hurt during the competition so I need to give him the benefit of the doubt on his last two passes. I still think the wind-aided rule is lame.

http://www.delawareonline.com/story/spor.../86664994/

Scott Filip finished 10th with 7680 points - a great effort in his first USA Olympic Trials.