Long Beach State track and field members Chris Richardson and John Tremidara contributed to the dominance of Team USA in the 2006 North American, Central American, Caribbean (NACAC) U-23 Track and Field Championships, at the Pan-American Stadium, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic last weekend.
Richardson, the All-American and 2006 Big West Conference Field Athlete of the Year took home the gold medal in the decathlon and broke the four year old event record with an unofficial score of 7,370.
Due to undisclosed matters, NACAC officials have not released complete event results to the public, but Richardson says Team USA dominated the weekend event.
Richardson said he does not know his official decathlon score, because the scores were not even released to the competitors. To make matters more confusing for Richardson, the results released over the PA system after were in Spanish.
“After the final event I knew I won, but I didn’t know I had the record because I didn’t speak Spanish. It wasn’t until after the National Anthem that someone translated and told me I had the record,” Richardson said.
“Overall it was a great atmosphere. It was an all-around good competition and it was a great honor to be in uniform and represent your country.”
On the other hand, Tremidara who’s also a track and field All-American, fell one place short of the bronze medal in the triple jump, settling in the fourth spot.
LBSU track and field head coach Andy Sythe said the contribution of Richardson and Tremidara in the weekend event was consistent with their year-long effort on the Big West Championship squad.
“It was a great honor for the guys to be invited to an international competition of such high level and it’s a great honor to represent the country,” Sythe said. “It’s been a long season for them because they’ve battled through injuries, but they both came out with strong performances when it mattered most.”
Richardson and Tremidara were invited to represent Team USA, in the 28-nation event, for their outstanding performances during the past track season.
“I’m proud that these guys represented our university. They simply went above and beyond,” Sythe said.