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Paul Gensic Earns All-America Status With Academy Record-Setting Performance
Gensic finished fourth in the pole vault with an Academy-record height of 18'0½
June 12, 2004
AUSTIN, Texas - Air Force junior Paul Gensic (Fort Wayne, Ind.) set a new Academy pole vault record en route to a fourth-place finish at the 2004 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Austin, Texas, on Saturday, June 12. With the finish, Gensic earned his second All-America award of the season and became the first athlete since 1996 to earn the prestigious honor on more than one occasion. Gensic cleared a new program-best mark of 18'0½". That mark broke the previous Academy record of 17'11" that he set last week to win the NCAA Midwest Regional Championships in College Station, Texas. His mark was the third highest height of the day. The 2004 championship was won by Oregon's Tommy Skipper, who posted a mark of 18'8¼". Yoo Kim (UCLA) and Eric Eshbach (Nebraska) each posted marks of 18'4½", while Jeremy Scott (Arkansas) and Sage Thomas (Texas Tech) joined Gensic at a height of 18'0½". Scott and Gensic tied for fourth after each clearing the mark on their second attempt, while Thomas finished sixth after not clearing the bar until his third chance. Gensic, who earned All-America status with a sixth-place finish at the indoor championships in March, becomes the first athlete since 1996 to earn the honor on more than one occasion. The last cadet-athlete to earn All-America honors during the indoor and outdoor seasons of the same year was Eric Mack in 1996. Gensic is the second Falcon to earn All-America honors on the pole vault, as Marcus Nichols finished ninth at the national championships in 1996.
Gensic caps off a weekend in which both of the Academy's representatives at the NCAA Championships earned All-America honors and finished within the top five of their respective events. Dana Pounds (Lexington, Ky.) finished fifth in the javelin throw last night (June 11) with a distance of 170'4".
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