Christian Patzka (Black Earth, Wis./Wisconsin Heights) of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater men's track and field team, competed at the Portland Track Festival on June 8th. 

Patzka ran in the 3000m Steeplechase, hoping to qualify for the Olympic Trials in two weeks. 

The automatic qualifying time for the Olympic Trials is 8:30, and Patzka set his PR of 8:38.55 at the 2024 WIAC Outdoor Track and Field Championship.

Patzka started out strong, sitting in the middle of the pack across the first few laps. With the heat of 19 runners, Patzka sat in 10th after the 4th lap. But in the final few laps, he made his move.

In Lap 5, Patzka jumped up four places after a 1:10.78 lap. In his penultimate lap, he jumped up another five places to reach 2nd overall in the heat. With one lap to go, Patzka was at 7:24.

Patzka finished the race after a 1:07 last lap, finishing 3rd overall in the second heat with a time of 8:31.89. After all three heats were completed, Patzka placed 10th overall.

With that time of 8:31.89, Patzka puts up a new mark in all of NCAA Division III, beating the previous record by almost 7-seconds.

Patzka will await the results from other meets to see if he qualifies for the Olympic Time Trials. If there are not 30 runners under the 8:30 qualifying time, they will take the top 30 runners in the 3000 steeple chase. Before this race, the 30th runner in the country was at 8:33.