Abildtrup Tabbed Pac-10 Female Track Athlete of Week
WALNUT CREEK, Calif. (4/13/04) - Junior Sofie Abildtrup (pron. ah-BEEL-trup) was honored Tuesday as Pacific-10 Conference Women's Track Athlete of the Week after she helped the Ducks win their 12th Pepsi Team Invitational team title last Saturday (4/10).
The first-year Duck opened her individual duty with a win in the 400 (54.49) for a Pac-10 and regional qualifier. The clocking moved her to ninth all-time for the Ducks and rewrote her former collegiate best that came indoors (54.76) in March. An hour later she added a blue ribbon in the 200 by a comfy .71-second margin and logged a .08-second personal best (23.94, w:1.8) for another set of regional and Pac-10 qualifiers that also moved her to seventh all-time for the Ducks. She returned at meet's end to seal the team win when she took the lead back in the 4x400 on the final straight en route to a 54.40-second split, while the team sped to an almost one-second season best (3:46.92). She also anchored the Ducks' third-place 4x100 relay (47.38).
Oregon won the 15th annual Pepsi Team Invitational with a total of 184 1/2 points and edged Washington (second, 169), Minnesota (third, 160 1/2) and Colorado (fourth, 100). An event win was worth nine points Saturday, so she contributed 18 individual points and played a part in another 15 points (9+6) in the relays.
Indoors in 2004, Abildtrup was an NCAA provisional qualifier in her only appearance in the 400 (54.76), and also led the Ducks in the 200 (24.39). She arrived in Eugene for the winter term with prior bests of 11.84 in the 100, 24.02 in the 200 and 54.16 in the 400. In 2003, she owned season bests of 11.86 (100), 24.09 (200) and 54.36 (400) and has competed recently for two clubs in Denmark - Herning GF Athletika Motion and Sparta. In the latter club she was coached by Wojciech Buciarski - fifth in the 1976 Olympic pole vault and father of former Duck All-American Piotr Buciarski (also a two-time World Championships competitor for Denmark).
Other honorees Tuesday in the award's first edition of 2004 included UCLA senior thrower Dan Ames (shot put 66-1, discus 189-10, hammer 199-1), ASU freshman sprinter Domenik Peterson (200 20.62, 4x400 3:03.97) and UCLA sophomore high jumper Sheena Gordon (6-1 3/4).
Last year, the Duck men tied with USC for the most weekly Pac-10 Athlete of the Week honors with USC (4) among the five editions. The Duck men claimed the most field event honors (2), USC held court for most track honors (3), and UCLA claimed the other field event honor (1). The Trojans also led in women’s honors in 2003 (3), ahead of UCLA (2), ASU (1), Stanford (1) and WSU (1).
Among the Ducks' honors last season, Santiago Lorenzo claimed the final men's AOW honor for his Pac-10 decathlon victory in USC (7,564, 5/10-11) for the fourth distinction of his career. The previous week (Tue., 5/6), Brett Holts was selected in the men’s track category after he took the Pac-10 steeplechase lead with his four-second personal best in the Cardinal Invitational (8:48.81, Fri., 5/2). The week before (Mon., 4/28), Adam Jenkins was selected in the field event category after he leapfrogged teammate John Stiegeler to the top of the Pac-10 javelin rankings, thanks to his three-foot personal and six-foot, seven-inch season best in the Oregon Invitational (221-4). Hammer thrower Adam Kriz claimed his first conference award two weeks prior in 2003’s inaugural honor for his then-best and Pepsi Team Invite win (217-10).
Besides 2003’s quartet of honorees, two other current Ducks have combined for five other Pac-10 honors the past three seasons - Trevor Woods (Pepsi Team Invite 4/02, pole vault, first, 18-0 1/2) and Sarah Malone (Oregon Twilight 5/01, javelin, first, 174-0).
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