Junior sprinter Jeff Demps (Winter Garden, Fla.) has been named
the Southeastern Conference Men’s Runner of the Week for his outstanding
performance at the Virginia Tech Elite Meet this past weekend, the league
offices in Birmingham, Ala. announced Tuesday.
Demps, who picks up his fifth career SEC weekly honor and third SEC Men’s
Runner of the Week nod, ran his first race of the 2012 season on Friday,
capturing the men’s 60 meters title with a time of 6.59. Demps defeated current
NCAA leader Harry Adams of Auburn in the process, becoming just the second SEC
athlete and fifth athlete nationally to turn in an NCAA automatic-qualifying
mark in the men’s 60m.
Demps ran the second-fastest 60 meter time in the SEC this year and the
third-fastest in the NCAA. The two-time defending national champion in the men’s
60 meters is one of only three athletes nationally (Adams of Auburn and Kemar
Hyman of Florida State) to run a sub-6.60 in the 60m this season.
This is the fourth consecutive weekly honor for the Gator program, as senior
thrower Kemal Mesic (Sarajevo, Bosnia) earned SEC Men’s Field Athlete of
the Week honors twice this season, bookending a weekly honor for freshman
jumper Taylor Burke (Medina, Ohio), who was named SEC Co-Women’s
Freshman of the Week earlier this season.
