Florida State hurdler Trey Cunningham won The Bowerman — presented to the top men’s track and field collegiate athlete — on Thursday night with University of Arkansas multi-event athlete Ayden Owens-Delerme finishing runner-up.
Cunningham was announced as the winner at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in suburban Denver.
Owens-Delerme, a senior this year, swept NCAA titles in the heptathlon indoors and the decathlon outdoors in his first year as a Razorback after transferring to Arkansas from Michigan.
Cunningham, a senior last year, won NCAA titles in the 60-meter hurdles indoors and the 110-meter hurdles outdoors.
Abby Steiner, an NCAA sprints champion at Kentucky, won The Bowerman for women.
Owens-Delerme said Wednesday after arriving in Colorado that he was going to have fun as a finalist for The Bowerman regardless of who won.
“Training and competing during the indoor and outdoor seasons, that was the hard part. Doing everything it took to get here,” Owens-Delerme said. “Win or lose, I’m going to have a good time here and be grateful.
“Getting to dress up and have the red carpet treatment, it’s going to be pretty neat. I’m going to take it all in and make sure I enjoy it.”
Owens-Delerme was attempting to become the second Razorback to win The Bowerman along with Jarrion Lawson, the winner in 2016 after he became the first athlete since Jesse Owens in 1936 to win the 100 and 200 meters and long jump at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Lawson, who lives and trains in Fayetteville, was among the past winners who attended the presentation.
Florida State became the third school to have two winners of The Bowerman, first presented in 2009, along with Oregon and Florida.
Also winning for Florida State was Ngonidzashe Makusha in 2011. Oregon had the first two winners of The Bowerman with Galen Rupp in 2009 and Ashton Eaton in 2010. Winners for Florida were Marquis Dendy in 2015 and Grant Holloway in 2019.
Owens-Delerme won the NCAA heptathlon title after being in fourth place going into the 1,000 meters — the final event — and 152 points out of the lead. He then ran a career-best 2 minutes, 31.55 seconds to win the title with 6,211 points and overtake Georgia junior Kyle Garland, who finished second with 6,200.
At the NCAA outdoor meet, Owens-Delerme won with 8,457 points to match the meet record set by Eaton in 2010.
“It’s one thing to do what I call a ‘paper decathlon,’ where you write down your best marks, what you think you can do, but Ayden went out there and actually got it done,” said Razorbacks assistant Travis Geopfert, who coaches Owens-Delerme and recruited him to Arkansas. “Ayden’s proven he’s one of the best athletes in the world.”
Owens-Delerme capped his first year at Arkansas by representing Puerto Rico at the World Championships and finishing fourth with an Arkansas school record 8,532 points. His total also set a Puerto Rican national record.