EUGENE, Ore. - Sam Mattis W'16 earned a spot on the United States Olympic Team in track & field, as he took third place in the men's discus which concluded Friday afternoon at Hayward Field on the campus of the University of Oregon.
Mattis--
who won the 2015 NCAA championship in the discus as a Quaker--took the lead in the first round of Friday's 12-man semifinal, uncorking a throw of 62.51 meters (205 feet 1 inch). That lead held up through the next two rounds, when the field was whittled to the top eight, and then another round. In the fifth and penultimate round, 2016 Olympian Mason Finley snatched Mattis' lead with a throw of 63.07 meters (206 feet 11 inches). In the final round, Reggie Jagers cleared 62.61 meters (205 feet 5 inches) which moved him ahead of Mattis into second place. However, no one else was able to best that first throw by the Penn grad.
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The U.S. sends its top three finishers in an event to the Olympics as long as they have met the Olympic standard. In men's discus that standard is 62.00 meters, which Finley, Jagers and Mattis all surpassed.
Mattis is the first Penn track & field athlete to make the Olympic Games since Michael Aguilar EAS'01 ran the 400-meter hurdles representing Belize at the 2004 Games in Athens, Greece, and he is the first to represent the U.S. at the Games since Fred Samara W'73 competed in the decathlon at the 1976 Montreal Games.
The Olympic Games will take place in Tokyo from July 21-August 8, with
track & field scheduled to run from July 30-August 8. The men's discus qualifying round will take place the morning of July 30 and the final will be contested the night of July 31.
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