Jett Kinder, The Best Returning Decathlete, Picks Oregon


* Brentwood's Jett Kinder earned a silver medal at the Pan American U20 Championships in July

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Jett Kinder, the nation's best decathlete and the No. 1 multis athlete in the Class of 2020, has signed with the University of Oregon, he announced recently on Instagram. 

The Brentwood (TN) High School senior is recently coming off of an incredibly successful 2019, where he put up PRs across the board, scored over 7,000 points in the decathlon variant and finished off his track and field season with a silver medal at the Pan American U20 Championships in Costa Rica. 

It was at the Pan American U20 Championships where Kinder found a championship form, scoring 6,627 points to become the only American athlete to find the podium. That performance followed a second-place finish at the USA Track and Field U20 Championships, with Kinder posting a total of 6,512. 

The previous indoor season, Kinder scored 3,673 points to win a national title in the pentathlon at New Balance Nationals Indoor. He posted indoor marks of 14-5.25 in the pole vault, 49-10.5 in the shot put and 8.92 in the 60mH. 


While he returns as the second-best decathlete in the country this outdoor season based on points -- Kimberly's (ID) Peyton Bair scored 6,729 in June -- few can match Kinder's ability in the field, where he sports marks of 6 feet, 8 inches in the high jump, 15-2 in the pole vault, 49-3.25 in the shot put (high school weight) and 179 feet in the javelin. 

Kinder scored 7,077 points in May at Tennessee's State Track and Field Championships, competing in a slightly altered format also consisting of 10 events -- Tennessee does not score the javelin, replacing it instead with the triple jump. That performance as a whole was the third best effort of 2019.

With Kinder's ceiling in the sprints and distance events still evolving, matched with his Olympic pedigree -- his father, Gary, was an Olympic decathlete in 1988 -- and his success in the throws, Kinder could be could be inching closer to the mid-7,000s in 2020.