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SCALING GREATER HEIGHTS . . . Zimbabwean decathlete Keegan Cooke recently broke his own national record in the United States

Augustine Hwata Senior Sports Reporter
UNITED States-based Zimbabwean decathlete Keegan Cooke has set a new national record in the combined disciplines when he eclipsed the previous mark he achieved in April 2012. On December 5 last year at the Pac-12 Decathlon Championships in the USA, the Zimbabwean athlete accumulated 7 078 points to better the 6 573 he tallied two years ago when he broke a long-standing record held by Stan Flowers then.

After breaking the national record, the 24-year-old Cooke capped a memorable year by getting engaged to Amy Suddens on Christmas Day in Kariba.

Flowers had held the national record for 23 years before Cooke made his new mark in April 2012 and he is not stopping as he has now added 500 more points.

Decathlon is a multi-disciplined event in which the athletes compete in 10 different events to accumulate aggregate gross total points.
Cooke is currently back home on a break and is now meeting the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee with the aim of qualifying for the next All-Africa Games and the Olympic Games.

“This is a new record and is an addition of 500 points to the previous record. I set this new record during the Pac-12 Decathlon Championships,” Cooke said yesterday.

In scaling the new heights, Cooke clocked 11.36s in the 100m and then stopped the clock in 47.71s in the 400m while he did the 110m hurdles in 15.64s and ran the 1 500m in 4 min 37.69s.

Cooke also leaped a decent 6.62m in the long jump and reached 1.91m in high jump while he pole vaulted 4.10m. From the throws, Cooke did 12.26m in shotput while he managed 36.67m in discus.

His spear of 53.86m in javelin also contributed to his total points tally of 7 078 to set a new national mark in Zimbabwe.
Flower, who held national records in javelin, long jump and high jump, was happy that Cooke is making remarkable progress.
“It’s quite remarkable to have someone challenging a record that has been standing,” said Flower.

National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe official Silas Muringani said while decathlon was a minority event, Cooke has the potential to win a medal for Zimbabwe at the next All-Africa Games in Congo Brazzaville in 2015.

“We have very few multi-disciplined competitions on the NAAZ calendar but with the recent potential shown by Cooke, we hope to include more events.

“Cooke is based in the United States where facilities are much better but we are hoping to continue tracking his progress.
“His latest points is almost close to the B qualifying standards for the Olympics which is 7 700. So he has a chance to do better. Now that we have an athlete with potential, I am hoping that we will also include combined events like decathlon (10), octahlon (8) or heptathlon (7),” said Muringani.