 His hurdles rivals were also in strong form, however; Kelly and Murray both ran 15.0 that spring, and on May 13 Earl Thomson, a Canadian-American, defeated them both in a Stanford race and tied Simpson's fresh record of 14.8.Simpson regained sole hold of the world record two weeks later at the 1916 Missouri Valley Conference championships, which Missouri hosted.He won the high hurdles in 14.6, improving his own world record by another fifth of a second, and equaled Alvin Kraenzlein's world record of 23.6 in the low hurdles; in addition, he won the long jump.