Owens Named Big Ten Field Athlete of the Year
6/16/2021 3:00:00 PM | Men's Track & Field
ROSEMONT, Ill. -- For the second time in as many outdoor seasons, the Big Ten Field Athlete of the Year hails from the University of Michigan men's track and field team as decathlete Ayden Owens was named the 2021 recipient of the award by the conference on Wednesday (June 16).
Fresh off one of the best seasons by a decathlete in conference history in what was his debut season for the Wolverines, the Big Ten champion and national runner-up Owens was bestowed the Big Ten's top honor for field event athletes in a vote of the conference's coaches.
He follows 2019 winner and fellow decathlete Jack Lint as the only other Wolverine men to earn the honor in outdoor program history. Grant Cartwright earned the indoor version of the award in 2017.
The award is the latest in a string of honors for Owens this 2020-21 academic year, including All-America first team honors both indoors and outdoors and the USTFCCCA Great Lakes Region Field Athlete of the Year award.
A Spanish major from Wexford, Pa., Owens was the highest-finishing Big Ten field athlete at the NCAA Outdoor Championships last week in Eugene, Ore., with his second-place effort. He lived up to his pre-meet No. 2 seed with an 8,114-point performance for the third-best decathlon of his career. His runner-up effort was the best national outdoor field event finish for Michigan in more than a decade, and its best-ever in the decathlon.
Only a sophomore, his score was also the sixth-best in meet history recorded by either a freshman or sophomore.
Perhaps the crowning achievement of his 2021 campaign to date was his school-record and Big Ten Championships-record 8,238-point victory at the Big Ten Outdoor Championships in May, which vaulted him to No. 2 in Big Ten history and No. 17 in collegiate history. His score ranks No. 10 in the world for the 2021 season, and it stands as the Puerto Rican national record.
Owens has aspirations to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics later this summer as a member of the Puerto Rican delegation. The qualifying window for the Games closes at the end of June.
• Big Ten Release
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