Aug. 4, 2008

WINSTON-SALEM - Wake Forest assistant track & field coaches Lela V. Nelson, Chris Helwick and Chris Boyles represented Team USA with strong performances in the 15th annual Thorpe Cup this past weekend, Aug. 2-3, in Manhattan, Kansas.

Nelson took home the women's individual title for second straight year, setting a new Thorpe Cup record with 6,029 in the heptathlon. That mark was also a career-best for the former collegiate All-American.

Despite Nelson's performance, the U.S. women fell short for the second year in a row, this time falling to their German counterparts by just 105 points, 17,267 to 17,162.

On the men's side, Helwick and Boyles finished fourth and sixth individually to lead the U.S. men's squad to their sixth straight victory by a score of 40,093 to 38,496. The win improves the U.S. to 12-3 overall in the competition's history.

On day one, Nelson won both the 100-meter hurdles (13.46) and 200-meter dash (24.16) to take the lead after the first day. She widened her lead right out of the gate on Sunday, winning the long jump with a remarkable leap of 6.65 meters. Solid finishes in the final two events gave Nelson a final margin of 238 points over Ulrike Hartz of Germany.

Helwick, coming off a seventh place finish at the U.S. Olympic trials, finished fourth with a personal-best 8,143 points. He started the second day in eighth, but blew away the competition in the javelin, winning by almost six meters, with a toss of 66.72 meters. He continued his climb on day two as he finished third in the pole vault with a mark of 4.95 meters.

Backed by second place finishes in both the high jump (2.03m) and the discus (47.15m), Boyles turned in a season-best score of 7,723 points to finish sixth.

Norman Muller of Germany won the men's individual title with 8,199 points but the U.S. men captured the next five spots to secure the victory.