Matthew Boling is targeting four gold medals at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships 2022, as Georgia seeks to win the men’s team title for the first time. The championships will begin on Friday, March 11, and run through Saturday, March 12, and you can watch the live stream and follow the live results online.
Boling enters the meeting at the Birmingham CrossPlex ranked No. 1 in two of his three individual events and will also be part of the Georgia 4x400m relay team that sits No. 3 nationally with a school-record of 3:02.59. Read more: How to watch the 2022 NCAA Indoor Championships?
This weekend the junior standout who most recently won the SEC Commissioner’s Trophy after being the top scorer on the men’s side at the SEC Indoor Championships 2022, will be aiming for another big scoring outing for the Bulldogs, who are backing themselves to challenge for the overall team title, despite the predictors leaning mostly towards Arkansas winning the trophy this year.
What are Boling’s performances heading into the NCAA Indoor Championships?
Boling holds the national No. 1 performances in the 200m with 20.27 seconds and the long jump, with an 8.25 meters (27 feet, 1 inch) mark, while he’s also listed among the top 10 runners this season in the 60m with his PB of 6.59 seconds.
If Georgia is going to win this year’s team title, the 21-year-old will need to get off to the best possible start, which means winning the long jump title on the first day of competition on Friday night.
Boling’s lone defeat this indoor season came in the long jump after he finished second to Tennessee’s Carey McLeod at the SEC Indoor Championships 2022 last month, but he wasn’t too bothered by the runner-up spot and noted at the time that he would be ready for nationals. Read more: [Video] Boling edges Harding in 200m at 2022 Tiger Paw Invitational
The Bulldog star will start as the defending champion in the 200m after setting a PB of 20.19 seconds in Fayetteville, Ark., in 2021, but he’s expected to be seriously pushed in the 200m by the improving Lance Lang (20.32) of Kentucky who is also targeting a 60m/200m double, as well as North Carolina A&T’s well-rested sprinter Javonte Harding (20.33).
Boling’s ambition to win the 60m will be a tough task as well, given that he will have to compete against a number of talented sprinters who have been preparing to make life very difficult for him.
He is ranked No. 9 in the event with a time of 6.59 secs, which he used to win the SEC Indoor Championships, and he’s listed way below the likes of the defending champion Micah Williams (6.48) of Oregon and Favour Ashe (6.52) of Tennessee who are my favorites to win the title this weekend.
Then there is the quickest man in the world this year, Terrence Jones of Texas Tech at 6.45 seconds, although there is a question mark about his fitness seeing that he hasn’t competed since suffering an injury last month.
