Valby Presented with National Athlete of the Week Honors after Setting Second NCAA Record
This marks the third time Valby has won the weekly award in 2023-2024: one during Cross Country, one during Indoor Track & Field and now in Outdoor Track & Field.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – For the third time in the 2023-2024 year, Parker Valby has been named the USTFCCCA NCAA Division I Women’s National Athlete of the Week. This is the second time she has earned this honor during the Track & Field season, the first following her collegiate record 5000m race at the Sharon Colyear-Danvile Season Opener and now the second occurring after she achieved the 10,000m collegiate record.
30:50.43. That was Valby’s time as she crossed the finish line of the Women’s 10,000m Invite at the Bryan Clay Invitational late Thursday night. The time shaved 28 seconds off of Lisa Uhl’s previous record of 31:18.07 which had stood since 2010 and had not been challenged in the last 11 years. No collegian had come within 19 seconds of Uhl’s record since 2013.
What was even more remarkable about Valby’s performance was her splits. Valby split 15:30 and 15:20 in the first and second halves of the race which is groundbreaking considering her record in an outdoor 5000m sits at 15:20.10, which she ran last year at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Valby became the 13th woman in American history to have broken 31 minutes in the 10,000m. Her time ranks No. 11 on the American all-time list and is No. 5 in the world in 2024.
Valby being honored with the Women’s National Athlete of the Week honor marks the first time since 2022 – and fourth time overall – that a female from Florida has been named National Athlete of the Week during the outdoor season. She joins Anna Hall (2022), Yanis David (2019) and Shayla Sanders (2016).
FOLLOW THE GATORS
SOCIAL: Twitter<https://twitter.com/GatorsTF> | Facebook<https://www.facebook.com/pages/University-of-Florida-Track-Field-and-Cross-Country/272013273259?ref=bookmarks> | YouTube<https://www.youtube.com/user/uftrack> | Instagram<https://www.instagram.com/gatorstf/?hl=en>
JOIN THE CONVERSATION: #GoGators
