It’s her first year competing in multi events, but former Bradwell Institute track star Quintunya Chapman is making the most of it. The University of Georgia junior recently was named to the National Team USA U23 squad that will compete in Canada on Aug. 8-10.
Chapman will compete in the heptathlon.
The eighth annual North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletic Association (NACAC) Under 23 Championship in Athletics event is being held in Kamloops, British Columbia. The bi-annual championship meet allows the best athletes from across the continent to showcase their talent. The event exclusively is for athletes 23 and younger.
Bulldogs’ jumps, decathlon and heptathlon associate head coach Petros Kyprianou sent a congratulatory message to Chapman via Facebook after she received a phone call last Sunday notifying her she had made the team.
Kyprianou said Chapman was selected based on how well she scored in the heptathlon at the recent NCAA Outdoor Track Championships.
Chapman closed out her first year of the heptathlon by vaulting to No. 5 on the school’s all-time list after scoring 5,659 in her first collegiate heptathlon meet, taking fourth at the Bulldog Heptathlon.
She was the runner-up in the heptathlon with 5,527 points at the SEC Championships, thanks in part to a personal-best long jump mark of 19 feet, 9 inches.
Chapman was named First Team Outdoor All-American in the heptathlon after finishing sixth at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, scoring 5,610 points.
Chapman first dipped her feet in the pool of multi-events during the 2014 indoor season. She finished fifth in the school record books by scoring 4,107 points to take 12th in the pentathlon and earn a Second Team All-America certificate at the NCAA Championships. She recorded five personal-best efforts en route to a career-best pentathlon score of 4,043 for eighth place at the SEC Championships.
According to the NACAC’s website, Team USA will be competing against 30 teams representing Central America, Canada and the Caribbean.