Wichita State javelin thrower and Ark City native wins junior national championship

The championship was won after the first throw.

With his first throw of the day, Wichita State freshman Taran Taylor secured the javelin title at the USATF Junior Championships with a mark of 233 feet, 2 inches over the weekend in Bloomington, Ind.

The victory qualifies Taylor to the 2018 IAAF World Under-20 Championships in Tampere, Finland on July 10-15.

"I knew going in that I needed a good one in my first three throws to put pressure on everybody else," Taylor said. "Whenever I hit that first throw, I knew it was a good one. To see it pop up on the scoreboard, it was just a big sigh of relief and then I could see everyone else squirming around over there. It felt good."

The championship continued the meteoric rise in 2018 of the Arkansas City native, who tacked nearly 50 feet onto his personal best from high school and landed the No. 2 longest throw in WSU history at 243-8 this season.

That type of improvement is unprecedented, even at a program like WSU, which has continually developed great javelin throwers.

"We always expect our guys to improve when they come in, but that amount of improvement is unexpected," WSU javelin coach John Hetzendorf said. "Not just for him, that's for anybody. It's just hard to improve that much in such a short amount of time. It's pretty remarkable that he's done it."

But Taylor's takeoff wasn't a complete surprise to the WSU coaches.

Taylor broke 11 seconds in the 100-meter dash as a senior at Arkansas City and tested extremely well in the series of tests WSU coaches put athletes through before the season. Whether it was a 30-meter dash or a standing long jump, Taylor was far more explosive than what was typical of a freshman, especially a javelin thrower.

"Go find me other javelin throwers who can run under 11 (in the 100)," WSU coach Steve Rainbolt said. "There's just not many of them. That was an indicator of explosiveness, an indicator of speed. That speed in his legs and hips exists in his strike and throw."

Once Taylor started refining his technique with Hetzendorf, he started popping off big throws. He hit the 210-foot mark in five of his eight meets this season for WSU.

While an off-day in qualifying prevented him from competing at the NCAA Championships, Taylor finished runner-up to Aaron True at the American Athletic Conference Outdoor Championships and finished the season with the No. 7 throw in the country.

"It seemed like I was blowing my goals out of the water every meet, so it was hard to keep track of things," Taylor said. "Every time I threw, it seemed like I kind of surprised myself. But with (Hetzendorf) and all of my teammates, I can see why I was able to improve so much."

Before the World U20 Championships, Taylor will compete in the 2018 USATF Championships in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday. While not all professionals have thrown yet this year, True ranks No. 2 in the country entering the meet with Taylor at No. 4.

This story was originally published June 19, 2018 at 4:31 PM with the headline "Wichita State javelin thrower and Ark City native wins junior national championship."