FAYETTEVILLE -- As potentially the world's best combo long jumper-sprinter since Carl Lewis, Jarrion Lawson could become jaded attending the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games.
Perhaps he will skip a couple in the next eight or even 12 years down the road.
Not this year, though, with no Olympic time past 2016 promised to him or anyone else.
Even though the men's long jump prelims and finals aren't until Aug. 12-13, Lawson will march into Friday's opening ceremonies in Rio de Janeiro. The Texarkana, Texas, native will march proudly with the U.S. team. The University of Arkansas grad fulfills his American dream just one U.S. Olympic Trials removed from the Razorbacks.
He last jumped for Coach Chris Bucknam's Razorbacks in June, tying Jesse Owens' 1935 and 1936 record as the only one to win the long jump, 100 meters and 200 meters at the NCAA Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Lawson, who competes for ASICS, long jumped 28-1¾, good for second place at the trials. It marked not only his personal best and the longest leap within legal wind conditions, but the longest legal conditions long jump in the world this year.
Off that jump, Lawson could big-time it and arrive post-opening ceremonies.
But he most certainly will be there.
"I am really looking forward to it," Lawson said. "It will be my first time doing all of this. Maybe if I am able to make it next time I might not go through the ceremonies, but this time I definitely have to experience everything. This is a once in a lifetime deal here. It's just an indescribable feeling to make my first Olympic team. That's been something I have been shooting for since eighth grade in 2008. To be here eight years later and say I am going to Rio and I am an Olympian is a great feeling."
Talking with other former and current Arkansas athletes still training in Fayetteville under Bucknam and men's assistant coaches Travis Geopfert and Doug Case or women's Coach Lance Harter and assistants Chris Johnson and Bryan Compton, they are just as wide-eyed to be part of the opening ceremonies for the U.S., Jamaican and South African teams they represent.
Dominique Scott, the 2016 UA grad fresh off winning the 5,000 and 10,000 meters as Harter's Razorbacks won the NCAA Outdoor Championship and now representing her native South Africa, best explained why 15 UA present and former track athletes representing six countries run to Rio defying warnings of the Zika virus, substandard sanitation and security risks.
"It's just amazing to see the world come together and support the best athletes in all sports" Scott said. "So I've always dreamed of representing my country at the Olympic Games ever since I can remember."
Sports on 08/03/2016