Athletics

Erme Valley’s Trigg earns All-American honours with top-eight finish at NCAA Champs

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Sam Trigg at the University of New Mexico (picture courtesy of Mike Mulcahy/UNM Athletics).

ERME Valley Harriers triple jumper Sam Trigg earned All-American honours by claiming a top eight finish in the NCAA Championships in Eugene overnight.

The University of New Mexico student finished eighth of 24 finalists in the prestigious championships in Oregon.

Trigg produced a best leap of 15.97m on his fourth jump and first in the final.

The former Ivybridge Community College pupil, who last month set a new PB of 16.38m to move up to fourth in the UK rankings, was consistent all the way through the competition, with five of his six jumps all between 15.67m and 15.97m.

He helped the University of New Mexico to their best NCAA finish since 1967. They had three athletes claiming All-American honours – and all were from Britain.

Scottish middle distance runner Josh Kerr won the men’s 1,500m title, while Worcester’s Alice Wright came second in the women’s 10,000m.

“You bring four people out (to the NCAA Championships) and three of them are All-Americans with a national champion and a national runner-up. It’s another very special day,” New Mexico head coach Joe Franklin told the university’s website.

On Trigg’s performance Franklin added: “Sam did a great job. He put on the turquoise jersey for the first time and came out scoring. For him to go out and do that and jump well was great. He did awesome.”

Trigg said: “I’m really please to get that eighth place and All-American. I went into the finals in ninth and on one of my last jumps in America, squeezed out an All-American spot.”

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