The California track & field team will kick off its outdoor postseason this week at the ACC Outdoor Championships, which will be contested from Thursday-Saturday at Wake Forest’s Kentner Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Each day of competition will be aired on ACCNX.
Each day of the meet will start at 8 a.m. PT. The first Thursday event to feature a Golden Bear will be the men’s javelin at 8 a.m. PT, while Cal’s Friday slate begins at 9:30 a.m. PT (women’s heptathlon) and its Saturday competition at 11 a.m. PT (men’s discus, women’s high jump).
Cal’s men currently rank third in the ACC standings, which is led by national No. 22 Virginia Tech. On the women’s side, the Bears rank seventh in the conference, led by No. 14 Clemson.
World record-holder, two-time Pac-12 champion and The Bowerman candidate Mykolas Alekna will be the heavy favorite in the men’s discus, topping the ACC qualifying list by over eight meters, while the nation’s top rookie hammer thrower and ACC leader Valentina Savva will look to improve upon her Indoor All-ACC Second Team finish in the women’s weight throw with her first conference medal. Just behind Savva in the conference hammer standings is ACC weight throw champion and two-time conference medalist Giavonna Meeks; she, along with fellow indoor ACC medalists Tyler Burns (pole vault – bronze) and Jason Plumb (long jump – bronze) – both of whom also have Pac-12 outdoor bronze medals to their name – aim to be the first Cal track & field athletes to earn consecutive ACC podium spots. Caisa-Marie Lindfors, who won the ACC discus title while competing for Florida State in 2023 and the Pac-12 bronze medal in her first year at Cal in 2024, rounds out the Bears’ group of previous conference top-three finishers.
Six additional Indoor All-ACC representatives from Cal – Johnny Goode (400m), Victor Ezike Jr. (high jump), Riley Knott (high jump), Trevor Rogers (long jump), Asjah Atkinson (60m hurdles) and Lucija Leko (shot put) – are entered in at least one event this week.
ACC OUTDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS (May 15-17, Kentner Stadium, Winston-Salem, N.C.)
Schedule
Live Results
Live Stream (ACCNX): Thursday | Friday (Early) | Friday (Late) | Saturday
CALIFORNIA ENTRIES (MEN) – ACC OUTDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS
Program Top 10 holders marked with an asterisk
100m – Aidan Orias
200m – Aiden Lippert
400m – Johnny Goode*
1500m – Caden Carney, Garrett MacQuiddy*, Justin Pretre*
110m Hurdles – Donovan Bradley*
4x100m Relay – California
4x400m Relay – California
High Jump – Brandon Cheeks II, Victor Ezike Jr., Riley Knott
Pole Vault – Tyler Burns*, Will Siemens*, Parker Terrill*
Long Jump – Javon Hampton Jr., Riley Knott, Jason Plumb*, Trevor Rogers
Triple Jump – Jeremiah Bolaños, Kosi Nwafor
Shot Put – Nick Godbehere, Nik Iwankiw
Discus – Mykolas Alekna*, Charlie Dang, Jared Freeman*, Nick Godbehere, Nik Iwankiw
Hammer – Kai Barham, Kai Burich, Jared Freeman*
Javelin – Charlie Dang*
CALIFORNIA ENTRIES (WOMEN) – ACC OUTDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS
Program Top 10 holders marked with an asterisk
200m – Nairobi Smith
400m – Loreal Wilson
800m – Jayden Hill
5000m – Georgia McCorkle
10,000m – Amelia Wardle-Stacey*
100m Hurdles – Asjah Atkinson*, Saqqara Ruffin*, Mari Testa*
400m Hurdles – Loreal Wilson*
4x100m Relay – California
High Jump – Jade Neser
Pole Vault – Ali Sahaida*
Long Jump – Asjah Atkinson, Yuki Hamachi
Triple Jump – Leah Anderson, Myla Canty*
Shot Put – Lucija Leko*, Caisa-Marie Lindfors*, Giavonna Meeks*
Discus – Lucija Leko*, Caisa-Marie Lindfors*
Hammer – Adrianna Coleman, Audrey Jacobs*, Giavonna Meeks*, Valentina Savva*, Amanda Spear
Heptathlon – Torre Anderson
LAST TIME OUT (THE 130TH BIG MEET – MAY 3, 2025)
Cal’s men defeated Stanford for the fourth year in a row, 95-65, aided by meet records from Mykolas Alekna (discus – 71.29m/233-10) and Johnny Goode (400m – 45.83) as well as the No. 10 discus throw in Cal history from Jared Freeman (59.77m/196-1). On the women’s side, Caisa-Marie Lindfors set a meet record in the discus (61.52m/201-10) while four women set program top-10 marks: Ali Sahaida (tied-No. 2, pole vault, 4.30m/14-1.25), Saqqara Ruffin (No. 7, 100m hurdles, 13.45), Mari Testa (No. 8, 100m hurdles, 13.54) and Giavonna Meeks (No. 9, shot put, 15.46m/50-8.75).
WORLD RECORD RETURNER
Discus thrower Mykolas Alekna is competing for the Bears once again after taking the 2024 season off to prepare for his debut Olympic Games, where he surpassed the previous Olympic record on the way to a silver medal. The 22-year-old phenom stunned the athletics world by breaking track & field’s oldest standing men’s record last April, posting a throw of 74.35m (243-11) at the Oklahoma Throws World Invitational to surpass a mark that had stood since 1986. He then broke it again last month, becoming the first man in history to surpass the 75-meter barrier with a mark of 75.56m (247-10) that also reset his own collegiate and ACC records.
Since enrolling at Berkeley in Fall 2021, Alekna has compiled an eye-popping résumé that has already elevated him into one of the sport’s legendary figures. The two-time World medalist, three-time Lithuanian Male Athlete of the Year and two-time semifinalist for The Bowerman set his first collegiate record as a freshman, later becoming the youngest-ever European discus champion and youngest World discus medalist in history at just 19 years of age; that year, he was also named a semifinalist for the AAU James E. Sullivan Award and the USTFCCCA West Region and Pac-12 Men’s Field Athlete of the Year. Alekna has claimed a total of five facility records and nine meet records over the past four years, as well as two Pac-12 titles and two First-Team All-American nods. Most recently, he was named the top discus thrower in the world by Track & Field News and recorded his 21st appearance on The Bowerman Watch List – tied for third most by any man in history.
LEADERS OF THE ACC
After two-and-a-half months of outdoor competition, Cal has three athletes sitting atop the ACC rankings. On the men’s side, Mykolas Alekna leads the entire world in the discus, while Johnny Goode has a share of the fastest 200m time in the conference. The women are represented by freshman hammer thrower Valentina Savva, who also ranks No. 4 in the NCAA.
THROW LOUD AND PROUD
Cal’s throws squad - which has already set six indoor and 10 outdoor program top-10 marks this season - is experiencing another elite year, led by returning Olympic discus throwers Mykolas Alekna and Caisa-Marie Lindfors. Hammer thrower Audrey Jacobs owns the Dutch U23 record and earned All-America status as a freshman in 2023, while Adrianna Coleman, a sophomore, has also reached the USATF U20 Championships in each of the past two years, taking bronze in the hammer in 2023.
The Bears also welcomed several top newcomers to the team this year. Cal’s throwing transfer class is headlined by two-time All-American Giavonna Meeks, who won Cal’s first ACC title (weight throw) in March and reached the U.S. Olympic Trials in the hammer throw last summer. Other new members of the squad include 2024 World U20 hammer silver medalist Valentina Savva, 2024 European Championships two-way competitor Lucija Leko (discus and shot put) and 2023 European U20 hammer medalist Kai Barham. Meeks (No. 2 weight throw, No. 4 hammer, No. 6 indoor shot put, No. 10 outdoor shot put), Savva (No. 3 hammer, No. 4 weight throw) and Leko (No. 2 outdoor shot put, No. 4 discus, No. 5 indoor shot put) have already recorded marks on Cal’s all-time top-10 lists, while UC Santa Barbara transfer Jared Freeman also now owns program top 10s in the indoor weight throw (No. 2), hammer (No. 7) and discus (No. 10).
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