Pappas leads Team USA at Thorpe Cup
Five-timeU.S. champion and 2003 World Championships decathlon gold medalist Tom
Pappas posted the second best score in the world this year in leading
Team USA to victory over Germany at the annual Thorpe Cup combined
events challenge in Marburg, Germany.
Pappas,who was injured earlier in the year and did not compete at the USA
Outdoor Championships, posted his best score in five years of 8,569
points in leading the Team USA men's squad to victory. This was the
best performance by Pappas since 2004 when he totaled 8,732 points at
Gotzis, and it is the highest total by an American this year.
FormerUniversity of Wisconsin standout Joe Detmer was the runner-up to Pappas
in the individual competition with 7,892 points, with German world
junior champion Jan Felix Knobel finishing third with 7,758 points.
Team USA, which has won the Thorpe Cup 13 times in 16 outings, won this
year's event convincingly with 39,462 points to Germany's 35,297.
A two-time Big 10 Conference champion while at Minnesota, Liz Roehrig led
the U.S. women's heptathlon squad by winning the individual competition
with 5,990 points. Germany bounced back to win the team heptathlon
competition with 17,680 points over Team USA's 16,650 points. The
heptathlon was added to the Thorpe Cup in 2006.
For more information on Team USA at the 2009 Thorpe Cup in Germany, visit: www.usatf.org.
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