By Melissa Ingabire
Mississippi State freshman thrower Anderson Peters made his NCAA championship debut a memorable one by breaking the NCAA meet record in the javelin Wednesday at Hayward Field with a throw of 271 feet, 8 inches.
Which, according to the NCAA, is also his PR, but Peters says they’ve got it all wrong: “This is not my personal best. My personal best stands at 84.81 (278-3). This is just my season best.”
Peters threw his PR at the third OECS Track And Field Championships in 2017, making his winning throw at NCAA a couple feet away from another personal best. It was still well ahead of the previous NCAA championships record, 270-11, set last year by Ioannis Kyriazis of Texas A&M.
Peters maintained some of the farthest throws throughout the competition, dominating from his first throw. At one point, he was leading his competitors by as much as 10 feet, and the only person to come close was his teammate, senior Nicolas Quijera, who finished second with a throw of 263-2.
The freshman said he and his teammates coined the term “Jav U” because they are the only university to have three guys throw over 80 meters. He credited his success Wednesday night to all the preparation he has done specially for this meet with his teammates.
According to Peters, training specifically for this meet helped him know exactly how many throws he needed to get warm, and it was this calculated approach that allowed him to take the lead from the first throw.
Despite being at his best physically, Peters wasn’t satisfied with his performances. “ Yes, I am at my best, but I wasn’t able to throw as far as I wanted to.”
However, the thrower did realize he broke the meet record for the last at Hayward before it is demolished for the new stadium and said, “OK — I guess that’s pretty cool. Hopefully, I come back in 2020 and set the meet record again.”
