Track & Field's Bruckner finishes 7th at World Junior Championships

AUSTIN, Texas – Texas saw a pair of strong performances from two track and field stars on Wednesday at the IAAF World Junior Championships. Incoming freshman Elena Bruckner advanced to the final in the shot put and rising sophomore Mariam Abdul-Rashid put on a show in the prelims of the 400 meter hurdles.

Wednesday morning from Bydgoszcz, Poland, saw Bruckner post a throw of 15.50 meters (50-10.25) on her first throw of the qualifying round to automatically advance to the final. Then during the evening final, Bruckner tallied a distance of 15.73 meters (51-7.25) on her second attempt. A foul on her third attempt kept her from advancing to the final round of throws and she finished in seventh place.

During the morning session on Wednesday, Abdul-Rashid ran her fastest time of the season to finish third in her heat and automatically advance to tomorrow's semifinals for Canada. She crossed the line in 58.65 seconds, shedding more than half a second off her previous best of 59.10 set at the Drake Relays. That time ranked ninth in the prelims as she is set to run the semifinals at 11:55 a.m. CT.

Bruckner will be back in action on Thursday as well as she throws in the final of the women's discus. She threw 53.83 meters (176-7) in Tuesday's qualification round to automatically advance to the final. Her best mark of the season of 56.94 meters ranks third in the field. She throws at 11:50 a.m. CT.

One other Longhorn will be in action from the World Junior Championships on Thursday. Rising sophomore Alex Rogers will run the first round of the men's 3,000 meter steeplechase at 3 a.m. CT.

Fans can keep up with the action from Poland with live results provided at iaff.org. The IAAF will also be running a live blog and have radio broadcast during the meet on its website. Updates from the meet can be found on the IAAF's official Twitter account @iaaforg. Texas Track & Field will have updates on its athlete on its Twitter account as well, @utexastrack.

Texas Longhorns at 2016 IAAF World Junior Championships

Team USA
Elena Bruckner: Shot Put (7^th place), Discus (Advanced to Final)
Alexis Duncan: 100m Hurdles
Alex Rogers: 3,000m Steeplechase
Destiny Collins: alternate for 3,000m

Team Canada
Mariam Abdul-Rashid: 400m Hurdles (Advanced to Semifinal), 100m Hurdles, 4x100m Relay, 4x400m Relay

Team Jamaica
Obrien Wasome: Long Jump (Foul during Qualifying Rd.)

The University of Texas at Austin Athletics

Track & Field's Bruckner finishes 7th at World Junior Championships

Players Mentioned

Mariam Abdul-Rashid

Alex Rogers