Centerville standout wins decathlon for Puerto Rico
Yariel Soto of Centerville High School has fully embraced the role of decathlon ambassador. But winning over his Elks teammates is a stretch.
“They see how crazy I am and how much it hurts,” said the Puerto Rico native who’ll be a senior. “I’ve had a good amount of younger athletes coming into middle school and high school asking me about the decathlon. Their coaches have asked if I could talk to them. It’s great.”
Soto capped an incredible track and field season by winning the U20 decathlon in the recent Pan American Combined Events Cup at Ottawa, Canada. His point total and combined runner-up in the New Balance Nationals Outdoor decathlon at Greensboro, North Carolina, vaulted him to No. 1 among U.S. junior decathletes.
That sudden surge began when Soto made an unlikely sweep of the pole vault and long jump in the Division I state track and field meet at Columbus in early June.
His recruiting status also has soared. Coaches from the University of Tennessee were scheduled to make a home visit to the Soto family this weekend. He also has interest in Michigan and Arkansas. All three collegiate programs are established NCAA men’s and women powers.
“The order that everything fell, I couldn’t have asked for anything better,” said Soto.
The decathlon is not contested among U.S. high schools, but is a staple of summer Olympic Games. Bob Mathias, Rafer Johnson, Bill Toomey, Bruce Jenner and most recently Ashton Eaton (Rio 2016) all have captured the nation’s attention for winning the 10-event grind at the highest level.
That’s what Soto did in his first international competition, which also served as Canada’s track and field national championships. The Pan America Combined Events Cup was an International Association of Athletics Federations-sponsored event that featured the best men (decathlon) and women (five-event heptathlon) in the Western Hemisphere.
At the Terry Fox Athletics Facility at Mooney’s Bay from July 3-4, Soto bested the field in the long jump (23 feet, 4 inches), 400 (50.46) and pole vault (14-9). He also had personal bests in the 100 (11.19) and the javelin (148-3). He credited pre-meet training with former Centerville track and field great Carla Battaglia-Greene for a nearly 10-meter improvement in the javelin.
Competitors collect points for each event, based on a sliding scale to the current world record in each event. Soto had 6,997 points to win gold at Canada. He totaled a career-best 7,025 points at the New Balance event.
For comparison, Eaton set the decathlon world record of 9,045 points in the 2015 World Championships at Beijing.