Yorks Breaks 1,500m Record, Maxwell 2nd In NCAA

Published by UW SID on May 1st, 2016

PALO ALTO, Calif. – With just two weeks to go until the Pac-12 Championships in Seattle, senior Izaic Yorks reasserted himself as one of the favorites for the conference, and national titles, as he shattered the Washington 1,500-meter school record and took the NCAA lead with a victory at the Payton Jordan Invitational. Yorks ran 3:37.74, leading wire to wire against a loaded field featuring multiple former Olympians.

At Stanford’s Cobb Track, Yorks went with the powerful and metronomic style that he exhibited in his record-setting 3:53.89 indoor mile, going right to the front of the field behind the pace setter, and once the pace setter stepped off, Yorks never looked back, leading the final two laps. It was a similar run to his outdoor opener of 3:41.56 that he ran on April 9 in a win at the Pepsi Team Invitational, but the quicker pace led him to the new record, breaking Austin Abbott’s mark of 3:39.63 set in 2009.

The defending Pac-12 champion in the event, Yorks said after the race that he had been hoping to run the Olympic standard of 3:36.20, “but we’ll save that for another day when I’m a little stronger and a little faster.” The time for Yorks is the fastest in the U.S. this outdoor season, and No. 6 outdoors in the world so far this year.

“I took a little downtime (after indoors) and this was my second race of the season,” Yorks said on Flotrack.com after his win. “With how long the season is, three seasons is a lot for any NCAA athlete to go through, and I’ve been very lucky to be healthy thus far.”