California track & field closed out its two-week slate of competition at several national championship meets around the world on Sunday as four Golden Bears – three alumni, one newcomer – each earned medals in their respective events, with one earning her first-career spot in the 2024 Olympic Games.
 
Alumna Georgia Bell, who decided to quit running seven years ago but returned to a full competition schedule this season, continued her outstanding comeback campaign with a decisive victory at 4:10.69 in the 1500m at the UK Athletics Championships in Manchester, England. The win, combined with her reaching the Olympic Standard in the event earlier this year, officially clinched Bell's trip to Paris as part of Great Britain's Olympic team. Bell is not only the first British athlete to represent Cal track & field in the Olympics, but the first Cal woman to do so in the 1500m and the program's first overall competitor in the event since Don Bowden in 1956.
 
In addition to Bell, two other Bears claimed national titles on Sunday. One day after posting the top result in the men's triple jump qualifier at the Kaleva Games in Vaasa, Finland, alumnus Tuomas Kaukolahti repeated that feat with a leap of 16.23m (53-3) to earn his second outdoor Finnish gold. That mark – nearly two feet better than Saturday's qualifying jump – outdid the rest of Sunday's field by over a foot. Meanwhile, at the Croatian Championships in Karlovac, Croatia, incoming freshman Lucija Leko followed up Saturday's discus silver with her second-consecutive national shot put crown on Sunday. Her mark of 15.03m (49-3.75) was 2.31 meters – seven feet, seven inches – ahead of second place.
 
Competing in the Bell Track & Field Trials in Montreal, 2024 graduate and indoor All-American Busola Akinduro leaped to a second-place finish in the triple jump with a mark of 12.95m (42-6), an outdoor season best. Winner Alexia Schofield also had a best jump of 12.95m, but her second-best mark of 12.83m (42-1.25) bettered Akinduro's No. 2 jump of 12.74m (41-9.75) for the tiebreaker.
 
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