Olympic Sports Spotlight: Another School Record for Iowa Track and Field

We try to switch up who is getting the spotlight in these articles. There are lots of standout Iowa athletes and there's often no shortage of options to highlight. We try to keep a rule of thumb of no repeat spotlights unless there's an obvious reason to.

But we have another rule: if you break a school record, you get the spotlight.

Our other Hawkeyes are doing great work in gymnastics and swimming and diving, but Peyton Haack took matters into his own hands this week to earn another spotlight for the Iowa track and field team. Let's take a closer look.

The Hawkeyes competed in the Razorback Invitational over the weekend and put together another strong performance against some top competition. The standout performance of the weekend came from junior Peyton Haack who set a school record in the heptathlon, setting a school record and posting the best score in the NCAA this season. Haack started strong on Friday, coming in 2nd in the 60m dash, posting a personal best in the shot put, and winning the high jump with a 2.04m jump that smashed his previous best of 194m. He then returned Saturday and won the 60m hurdle leg in 7.95s, tied for first in the pole vault with a 5-meter jump, and ran a 2:49.83 in the 1000m to set the Iowa school record and current NCAA season-best with 6,007 total points. Iowa's other competitor in the event, Austin West, was right behind him, setting the #2 score in Hawkeye history with a 5,861-point effort. West was a strong competitor in the NCAA outdoor championships last year and Haack, coming off of an injury, is clearly feeling as good, if not better, than he ever has. The two will no doubt continue to push each other through the indoor and outdoor seasons.

Haack and West weren't the only top-10 performances from the Hawks over the weekend. Tionna Tobias set the 5th-best mark in school history in the women's pentathlon with a 3,919-point score, Wisdom Williams claimed the 9th spot on Iowa's all-time shot put list with a 15.38m throw, and the Women's 4x400 relay team of Ali Dorn, Paige Magee, Audrey Biermann, and Chloe Larson moved up to 4th in Iowa history after running a 3:34.06. Bierman etched her name in the record books a second time with a 53.87 400m time, good for 7th all-time in Iowa history. The last top-10 mark of the weekend came in the men's triple jump where James Carter leaped 16.14 meters to earn 2nd all-time in Hawkeye history.

There's a part of me that wants to copy and paste everything we wrote last week about this team. They continue to rewrite the Hawkeye record books each week and have now broken school records two weeks in a row, both from athletes that were somewhat off my radar before the year started. That's a real testament to just how much depth this Iowa squad has. There are so many athletes that are liable to smash school records on any given week. The team continues to challenge itself in these mixed professional/collegiate events and they're more than holding their own.

It's hard to say who, mostly because there are just so many dang options, but there's a very good chance that someone in this group is going to be a Big Ten indoor champion, if not multiple athletes. These Hawks are going to be fighting for a conference championship yet again. Huge props to Coach Woody and the entire track and field squad. Keep putting together these historic performances.

The Hawkeye gymnastics team continued their strong start to the season, battling to a 196.875 draw with Minnesota over the weekend. The mark was .005 below last week's score, marking the first time the group hasn't reset their season-best, but the total was still good for the 7th-best in school history. The Hawks had at least one gymnast tie for first in all four events. Adeline Kenlin tied for first on both beam and bars and tied her career-high on floor. JerQuavia Henderson scored 9.975 on floor to tie for first and Linda Zivat took home the title on vault with a 9.975 of her own (3rd-best in Iowa history). The GymHawks are so young and already putting up massive scores. Henderson and Kenlin are young stars and this team should continue to improve as they gain more and more experience. The Big Ten has some tremendous gymnastics programs, but the Hawkeyes are good enough to compete at the top of this highly competitive conference. They'll retake the mat next Monday against Nebraska in a meet televised on BTN (8 PM CT).

Iowa swim and dive competed against Northwestern, Minnesota, and Purdue over the weekend, setting three all-time top-10 marks. Kennedy Gilbertson led the way for the Hawks, setting the 4th-fastest time in Iowa history in the 50m free (22.75) and the 5th-fastest time in the 100m backstroke (53.66). Sabina Kupcova earned the Hawks other top-10 mark with a 2:02.59 200m IM, good for 8th in Iowa history. They'll next compete at the Big Ten Championships beginning February 15th.