2025 USATF Outdoor Championships: Event-By-Event Jumps & Decathlon Preview

Presented by Olipop

Flavor-packed, sunshine-ready, and cooler-approved. Grab your beach towel, slather on some SPF, and start sippin’. Get 25% off all your orders at DrinkOlipop.com.

Link here: https://olipop.pxf.io/GmBDD6

By David Melly and Paul Snyder

To paraphrase Daft Punk: HIGHER, LONGER, TRIPLE-IER, VAULTIER. 

That’s right. Today we’re talking about the jumps and decathlon at USAs, set to get underway today in Eugene, Oregon. As is typically the case at a U.S. championship, expect strong competition across all of these events, but pay extra close attention to both pole vaults and the women’s long jump—that’s where the stars will be out.

The best way to catch any of the leaping and vaulting action is to already be in Eugene and take it in live. For the rest of us, we’ll have to tune into USATF.TV, and hope that the brief NBC/Peacock broadcast windows spare us a moment or two of jumping footage. (As a field event fan, you already expected this and are well-versed in the struggle that is following a major championship via live result page.)

• Before we dive in, here’s a quick rundown of the on-site coverage and group runs CITIUS MAG will be working on all meet long:

• Be sure to start each day of USAs with Good Morning Track and Field (presented by Bee Keeper Coffee), where Eric Jenkins and Aisha Praught-Leer give their takes on the action and happenings in Eugene. (Also available on the Off The Rails Podcast feed.)

• After each day at the track, tune in for CHAMPS CHATS—Chris Chavez, Eric, Aisha, Anderson Emerole, and Paul Hof-Mahoney will break down all of the results and offer up their analysis from each day’s competition. (Also available on the CITIUS MAG Podcast feed.)

• The CITIUS MAG Newsletter will be hitting your inbox daily with a recap of results and a round-up of the best content from the day.

• And for those in Eugene, we’ll be hosting two group runs with New Balance, Saturday and Sunday at 8 a.m. PT, meeting in front of Agate Alley on 1461 E. 19th Avenue. There will be coffee, treats, free “I Love Track and Field” t-shirts and the chance to try out the new FuelCell Rebel v5 and FuelCell SuperComp Elite v5. It’s going to be a great time!

Finally, it’s time for the top storylines and athletes to watch in each jumping event at the U.S. Championships.

Men’s Long Jump

Final: Friday, August 1, 7:10 p.m. ET

Reminder who made the team last year: Jeremiah Davis, Malcolm Clemons, and Jarrion Lawson

Who has the World Championship qualifying standard (8.27m) or is in the World Rankings quota: Marquis Dendy, Jeremiah Davis, Isaac Grimes, and Cameron Crump

Top Contenders: No Americans have cleared the audacious 8.27m World standard in this event, but the closest this year is also one of the most experienced athletes in the field: Marquis Dendy, who’s the U.S. leader at 8.18m and also a two-time U.S. outdoor champion, most recently in 2023. At the Ed Murphey Classic, earlier this month, Dendy bested several of his rivals, including Jeremiah Davis, Cameron Crump, and Will Williams, but he also had a truly awful day at last year’s Olympic Trials. So the question is whether you value his most recent jump or his most recent championship as a stronger indicator.

Davis is the defending champ, leaping 8.20m to claim the title last year. Malcolm Clemons is the NCAA champ, and Williams won the 2025 indoor competition, so there’s a good number of leapers in this field who’ve shown recently they know how to win.

Dark Horses: Jarrion Lawson made the team last year, but he’s only logged three long jump competitions so far this season, and his best is only 8.05m. If he can get back to his summer 2024 form, he’ll be a threat to make another team, but that’s a big “if” based on recent results.

One Good Stat: Dendy and Clemons both won NCAA titles for the Florida Gators, but more than a decade apart: Dendy was the 2014 and 2015 champ, and Clemons won his first title last month.

Women’s Long Jump

Final: Thursday, July 31, at 9:00 p.m. ET

Reminder who made the team last year: Tara Davis-Woodhall, Jasmine Moore, and Monae’ Nichols

Who has the World Championship qualifying standard (6.86m) or is in the World Rankings quota: Tara Davis-Woodhall, Lex Brown, Jasmine Moore, Claire Bryant, Tacoria Humphery, Monae’ Nichols, Quanesha Burks, Alyssa Jones, and Sydney Willits

Top Contenders: Best of luck to anyone trying to take down Tara Davis-Woodhall on the domestic circuit these days. The Olympic champ hasn’t lost a long jump competition in the last two seasons, and the last time she was beaten by an American was way back in July 2023, when Quanesha Burks got the better of her at that year’s London Diamond League. More recently, Davis-Woodhall leapt 7.07m to win the Prefontaine Classic over three-time global champ Malaika Mihambo and a handful of her rivals, including Burks, Jasmine Moore, Claire Bryant, and Lex Brown.

Brown is the only other American over 7 meters this season, but she only finished third at NCAAs and hasn’t gotten close to her 7.03m SB, set in May, in the following competitions. A more likely threat to Davis-Woodhall (long shot though it may be) would come from Moore, who was only 2cm back of Davis-Woodhall at Trials last year, or Bryant, the World Indoor champ.

Dark Horses: This is a pretty top-heavy event—the podium will almost certainly consist of one of the athletes with the standard. It’s tempting to call Burks a dark horse, or at least an underdog, because she’s only jumped 6.80m and hasn’t won a competition all season, but it’s hard to say that Burks, a three-time national champion (two indoors, one outdoors) isn’t expected to be in the mix.

One Good Stat: Since the start of 2024, there have been nine 7-meter performances (wind-legal) by an American. Tara Davis-Woodhall produced eight of them.

Men’s Triple Jump

Final: Sunday, August 3, at 4:20 p.m. ET

Reminder who made the team last year: Salif Mane, Russell Robinson, and Donald Scott

Who has the World Championship qualifying standard (17.22m) or is in the World Rankings quota: Salif Mane, Russell Robinson, Donald Scott, and Brandon Green

Top Contenders: For years, two athletes dominated the American triple jump: Christian Taylor and Will Claye. The 2024 Olympic Trials represented a changing of the guard of sorts, with Claye finishing sixth and Taylor finishing tenth in the last season of the latter’s career. At 34 years old, Claye is back for more this weekend, but he hasn’t cleared 17 meters in nearly three years and his season’s best, 16.85m, puts him fifth among Americans.

The good news is that if Claye can let his experience win the day and land on the podium, he’s also got a decent shot at boosting himself in the world rankings, as his lowest performance of five counting toward his rankings, a 15.82m at Penn Relays, is badly pulling his average down and a season’s best-caliber leap plus a top-three finish would push him into the quota.

But he’s unlikely to win, however, because defending champ Salif Mane is coming off a season’s best 17.00m at Ed Murphey and U.S. leader Russell Robinson has jumped 17.30m and 17.29m this season, also picking up a national title indoors. Right behind them is NCAA champ Brandon Green, and veteran Donald Scott has beaten Mane head-to-head at two Diamond Leagues. If two of those four falter or Claye steps up, things could get interesting, but right now that’s the pecking order.

Dark Horses: Omar Craddock hasn’t competed since July 2024, but he’s entered and declared and if he can magically replicate his 16.84m fourth-place finish from last year’s Trials, he could be in contention. But that’s a big “if.”

One Good Stat: Before Mane’s victory last year, either Scott or Claye had won every U.S. outdoor title going back to 2015. The 2015 champ? Omar Craddock.

Women’s Triple Jump

Final: Saturday, August 2, at 3:40 p.m. ET

Reminder who made the team last year: Jasmine Moore, Keturah Orji, and Tori Franklin

Who has the World Championship qualifying standard (14.55m) or is in the World Rankings quota: Jasmine Moore

Top Contenders: With neither Keturah Orji nor Tori Franklin competing, this title is Jasmine Moore’s to lose. And she very well may be the only American contesting the event in Tokyo, as the field is capped at 36 athletes and the next American on the list, Agur Dwol, would have to improve her position significantly from 44th or hope a lot of people ahead of her scratch in a highly-specialized event.

Moore is the reigning indoor and outdoor U.S. champ and the only 14 meter jumper in the field, so she’s got a fairly safe cushion off her 14.41m season’s best before her title defense is seriously threatened. Dwol, the NCAA indoor champ for Oklahoma, has a 13.80m season’s best and is consistently in the 13.6-7m range, so she’s got a very honest shot at the podium but would have to literally leap forward to have a shot at a qualifying spot.

Also in the mix is Imani Oliver. The 32-year-old is well-positioned to finally land back on the podium: she finished third in 2019 and then fourth in 2021, 2023, and 2024 (fifth in 2022). She’s sitting at 50th on the ranking list right now, however, and even one really good jump wouldn’t move her up that far.

Dark Horses: Dwol’s Oklahoma teammate Ashley Moore (no relation to Jasmine) is also seeded highly, and hey, if the coaching is good enough for one athlete, it could land the other on the podium.

One Good Stat: The combined WA score of Jasmine Moore’s long jump and triple jump PBs (15.12m and 7.03m) is 2,457, just 31 points shy of TJ world record holder Yulimar Rojas’s, with PBs of 15.74m and 6.88m.

Men’s Pole Vault

Final: Saturday, August 2, at 3:50 p.m. ET

Reminder who made the team last year: Sam Kendricks, Jacob Wooten, and Chris Nilsen

Who has the World Championship qualifying standard (5.82m) or is in the World Rankings quota: Sam Kendricks, Chris Nilsen, KC Lightfoot, Austin Miller, Matt Ludwig, Keaton Daniel, Nate Richarts, Jacob Wooten, Carson Cody Waters and four others

Top Contenders: Chris Nilsen cleared 6.01m back in January at an indoor meet in France and won the U.S. Indoor title, then outdoors he’s won four of the five competitions he’s entered and cleared 5.92m twice. No other American has cleared 6 metersin 2025.

Sam Kendricks’s highest clearance of the year (5.90m) came in his bronze medal performance at World Indoors. Kendricks has been active on the Diamond League circuit, competing at five—six if you count Prefontaine, which didn’t feature the pole vault in its main schedule—and acquitted himself well enough at those meets, getting fourth in Monaco and second at Pre.

Austin Miller would be a first-time member of Team USA, and he has shown flashes this outdoor season to suggest he’s ready. His lifetime PB of 5.91m came this May, and he finished just behind Kendricks at Pre. Matt Ludwig’s 5.83m clearance at the Atlanta City Games make him the fourth highest American vaulter this year. And though Jacob Wooten hasn’t quite found the same top-end form he exhibited last summer to make the Olympic team, his three most recent results aren’t that far off where he was this time last year.

Dark Horses: KC Lightfoot is still finding his footing after injury setbacks. His best mark so far in 2025 is the 5.75m he posted back in June, which he followed up with two less impressive competitions, including a loss to Kendricks at Pre. That said, he is the American record holder, and it shouldn’t take him being at peak form to put himself in contention. If he can get back into the 5.85m range, he can give himself a decent chance at top three.   

One Good Stat: World record holder and pole vault GOAT Mondo Duplantis last lost a competition in July of 2023, the Monaco Diamond League meet. There, he was beaten by two men in this very field: meet winner Chris Nilsen, and fourth-placer Sam Kendricks.

Women’s Pole Vault

Final: Sunday, August 3, at 3:00 p.m. ET

Reminder who made the team last year: Katie Moon, Brynn King, and Bridget Williams

Who has the World Championship qualifying standard (4.73m) or is in the World Rankings quota: Katie Moon (World champion), Amanda Moll, Sandi Morris, Hana Moll, Brynn King, Emily Grove, Gabriela Leon, Chloe Timberg, Kristen Leland and 4 others

Top Contenders: Katie Moon has a wildcard entry into Tokyo as the reigning World champ. Knowing Moon, though, she’d certainly like another U.S. title to her name, and she’s put up performances this outdoor season that suggest she’ll be in the running to repeat in Tokyo. That said, despite picking up a pair of Diamond League wins and two more DL second-place finishes for good measure, her last outing was—by her lofty standards—something of a stinker: a 4.40m last place finish at a small street meet in Italy. If you’re inclined to think we’re due for an upset, there are plenty of candidates to deliver it.

Sandi Morris’s 4.82m SB is right there with Moon’s 4.83m, and she’s similarly been a steady presence atop the Diamond League standings, picking up wins in Rome and Stockholm. Moon has beaten Morris both times they’ve squared off outdoors this year, but Morris holds a sizable lead in their lifetime series: 51-28.

Morris and Moon are the only two American women to have vaulted over 4.80m outdoors in 2025. And given that this is… well, an outdoor championship, and Eugene can be notoriously tricky from a wind standpoint, they’ve cemented themselves as the likeliest champions. But another veteran, Emily Grove, has shown she’s a consistent outdoor vaulter as well. After a slow start, Grove’s last two outings both resulted in 4.73m clearances—she hadn’t been over 4.70m since 2022—so she’s trending in the right direction heading to Eugene.

Then there’s the talented collegiate triumvirate: Brynn King, the NCAA DII champ who won Texas Relays in 4.75m; Hana Moll of Washington, who won NCAAs in 4.79m; and her twin sister Amanda Moll, who has gone 4.78m outdoors, but holds the highest clearance outright of any American this year, thanks to her 4.91m NCAA indoor title performance.

The five women without a bye have all secured the entry standard, so it’s really a matter of what you think counts more in these settings: experience and the ability to give a B+ effort even on your worst day, or upside, with the ability to sniff 5.00m with everything going perfectly.

Dark Horses: This year’s NCAA runner-up, Chloe Timberg, formerly of Rutgers, has a lifetime PB of 4.71m, but in her three competitions as a post-collegiate athlete, she’s either won or finished ahead of Katie Moon. She’s in the quota, so with another workmanlike performance and a couple of the higher-ranked athletes getting knocked out early, Timberg has a chance.

One Good Stat: Moll (Hana) holds a 25-21 edge over Moll (Amanda) in meets recognized by World Athletics. They haven’t finished more than two places apart in a pole vault final since April of last year—14 competitions ago.

Men’s High Jump

Final: Sunday, August 3, at 3:50 p.m. ET

Reminder who made the team last year: Shelby McEwen, JuVaughn Harrison, and Vernon Turner

Who has the World Championship qualifying standard (2.33m) or is in the World Rankings quota: Shelby McEwen, JuVaughn Harrison, Elijah Kosiba, Vernon Turner, Tyus Wilson, Kason O’Riley, Arvesta Troupe, and Caleb Snowden

Top Contenders: It’s been a strange year for the men’s high jump in America. Shelby McEwen, the reigning Olympic silver medalist won the Doha Diamond League meet in 2.26m, equaling his season best. The thing is, that jump only makes him the ninth ranked American on the year, and he’s in a 10-way tie for 31st in the world. 

JuVaughn Harrison is likewise a global silver medalist (2023 Worlds), earned via a lifetime best jump of 2.36m. His 2025 campaign also doesn’t exactly leap out at you. He’s cleared 2.27m, which ties him with three other men for the fifth highest in the U.S. this year (including Jaivon Harrison… he’s not even the best Harrison so far!). But he has steadily performed on the Diamond League circuit, placing fourth, fourth, and third, at Rabat, Rome, and Monaco, respectively. 

Harrison (JuVaughn, that is) and McEwen have been the class of American men’s high jumping for the past several years, we’re inclined to believe they’ll put it together here in Eugene. 

Of the competitors in the 18 man field, Elijah Kosiba and Tyus Wilson have jumped the highest in 2025, both having cleared 2.28m. Kosiba finished fourth at World Indoors this winter and has jumped a handful of solid flights on the domestic and Canadian outdoor circuit. Wilson hasn’t competed since his sixth-place showing at NCAAs. Momentum is probably on Kosiba’s side here.

Dark Horses: But if we want to talk about momentum, we need to mention 21-year-old Arvesta Troupe. He’s just 1cm back from Kosiba and Wilson by season’s best, and his most recent jump—the 2.27m PB in question—won him the NCAA title. 

One Good Stat: Okay, it’s not track and field related, but in 2014 Shelby McEwen won a high school slam dunk contest in awe inspiring fashion.

Women’s High Jump

Final: Friday, August 1, at 7:05 p.m. ET

Reminder who made the team last year: Vashti Cunningham and Rachel Glenn

Who has the World Championship qualifying standard (1.97m) or is in the World Rankings quota: Rachel Glenn, Vashti Cunningham, Charity Hufnagel, and Jenna Rogers

Top Contenders: Vashti Cunningham first leapt onto the international scene 10 years ago. She set the high school record (1.94m) back in 2015, and has been an assumed presence on national teams ever since, medaling twice at World Indoor Championships, earning one bronze World (outdoor) medal, and finishing fifth at the Olympics twice. While she hasn’t recently approached her 2.02m PB, set back in 2021, she’s steadily improved since a disappointing 10th place showing at World Indoors. Her 1.94m clearance at the Paris Diamond League effectively ties her for the best seed based on outdoor jumps coming in, and as a 27-year-old “elder” stateswoman in the event she’s got plenty of championship experience that ought to serve her well here.

Rachel Glenn would be favored to make the team—and she’d realistically have a good shot in the 400m hurdles as well—if not win, if she were healthy. She soared over 1.98m back in March! C’mon, now! That said, the Arkansas Razorback and 2024 Olympian suffered a fractured pelvic bone ahead of the SEC championship and hasn’t competed since.

With Glenn out of the equation, both Charity Hufnagel and Jenna Rogers are well positioned to make their first U.S. outdoor teams. They’re in the quota, so if they can copy and paste their placements from U.S. Indoors—which went Cunningham (1.94m), Hufnagel (1.94m, with one miss at the height), then Rogers (1.90m)—they’d be in. Rogers’s highest outdoor clearance this year is 1.90m, in her third-place showing at NCAAs, and hasn’t competed since. Hufnagel cleared 1.94m at the Whatgravity meet in Doha back in May.

Dark Horses: Emma Gates looks best poised to potentially displace one of the favorites. The Arizona Wildcat redshirted this outdoor season after a fourth-place showing at NCAA Indoors, and has only competed in Arizona and southern California since, most notably finishing third in her current lifetime best (1.91m) at the USATF Throws Festival. She currently sits a few spots outside of where she wants to be on the World rankings, but a top-three performance accompanied by an improvement on her 1.91m PB (set in May) would potentially be enough to get her to Tokyo. 

One Good Stat: Grumble all you want about “trackflation,” but the U.S. women’s high jump all-time list boasts a refreshing representation of decades. Only two jumps—Cunningham’s 2021 2.02m and Glenn’s 2024 2.00m—have come in the last ten years, while three were performed in the 1980s.

Decathlon

First event: Thursday, July 31, at 2:20 p.m. ET

Final event: Friday, August 1, at 10:06 p.m. ET

Last year’s Olympic team: Heath Baldwin, Harrison Williams, and Zach Ziemek

Who has the World Championship qualifying standard (8,550) or is in the World Rankings quota: Kyle Garland, Heath Baldwin, Harrison Williams, and Peyton Bair

Top Contenders: After being forced to pull out of last year’s Olympic Trials after seven events, Kyle Garland came back in a big way at Gotzis, recording an 8,626 point performance that puts him at #2 in the world this year and #1 in the U.S. Garland has gotten above 8,600 points in three of the last four seasons, a threshold that has been good enough to make the team in the last four championships—and good enough to win this meet as recently as 2019.

Defending champ Heath Baldwin and 2023 champ Harrison Williams also have the capacity to score in the 8,600 range, as does 2022 bronze medalist Zach Ziemek. But Ziemek has completed quite sparingly this season, and hasn’t completed a full decathlon this year, so his health and fitness is a bit of an unknown. If all four are healthy, this is likely to be a closely fought battle for three spots, unless NCAA heptathlon/decathlon champ Peyton Bair is saving his best stuff for July. 

Dark Horses: Garrett Scantling returned from a three-year suspension for whereabouts violations in June with a 8,320 point performance at a meet so small it wasn’t on the WA calendar—but was good enough for USATF to get him into the meet. At his best, Scantling can win the whole thing, but whether or not he’s returning to competition at the height of his powers remains to be seen.

One Good Stat: Americans have won nearly half the World Championships decathlons ever contested: nine of nineteen. But none have won since Ashton Eaton’s 2015 title… could this be the year a member of Team USA steps up?

Keep up with all things track and field by following us across Instagram, X, Bluesky, Threads, and YouTube. Catch the latest episodes of the CITIUS MAG Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more, subscribe to The Lap Count and CITIUS MAG Newsletter for the top running news delivered straight to your inbox.