May 12, 2005

Nashville, Tenn. – South Carolina women’s track and field heptathletes kicked-off championship action on Thursday at the SEC Outdoor Championship hosted by Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn.

Leading the Gamecocks, senior All-American Chelsea Hammond was on fire after the first two events on. She started competition with a good run in the 100m hurdles to land her in fourth place with a personal best time of 14.09, earning 966 points to start off the heptathlon. Hammond then followed with an outstanding performance in the high jump, leaping a personal best height of 5’11 ¼, winning the event and putting her in first place with a total of 1957. Her high jump performance broke the school outdoor record, previously set at 5’9 ½ by Hammond in 2002. However, after a poor performance in the shot put with three fouls, Hammond withdrew from the competition.

Also competing in the heptathlon for the Gamecocks are sophomore Chelsea Kaczmarek and Reanna Townsend. Kaczmarek ran 17.33 in the 100m hurdles, leaped 4’10 ¼ in the high jump, threw 31’0 in the shot put and finished the day with a time of 25.19 in the 200m dash to finish day one in 14th place with 2522 points. Townsend, who had a good overall performance, finished the day in seventh place, totaling 2985 points. Townsend ran 14.53 in the 100m hurdles, high jumped for 5’3, threw 35’1 ½ in the shot put and ran 26.33 in the 200m dash.

Kaczmarek and Townsend will continue competing in the heptathlon on Friday with the long jump, javelin and 800m run. Field events will kick-off the day at 10 a.m. with the men’s hammer, followed by the women’s at 1 p.m. Heptathlon events will pick back up at 4 p.m. Running events will follow starting at 7 p.m. with the men’s 800m preliminaries, followed by the women’s at 7:15 p.m. Other Friday competitions include the men’s and women’s 200m preliminaries, men’s and women’s 400m hurdles preliminaries, and the men’s and women’s 10,000m finals.

Results will be available following the competition at www.uscsports.com.