Two California track & field standouts were honored with World No. 1 rankings by Track & Field News on Tuesday as redshirt junior Mykolas Alekna and alumna Camryn Rogers were named the top global performers in the men's discus and women's hammer, respectively, in 2024. Alumna Georgia Bell, who astonished the track & field world with an outstanding comeback season, came in at No. 5 in the women's 1500m world rankings, while 2023 graduate Hakim McMorris was ranked eighth on the men's decathlon U.S. list.
 
The 2024 lists mark the first time in program history that two Golden Bears have achieved a No. 1 ranking simultaneously, as well as the first time that two Cal women have been named in the same year and the first time since 1983 that three Bears have reached global top-10 status.
 
Alekna is the first Cal athlete in history to be named No. 1 while still competing collegiately, as well as the Bears' first man to reach the top since pole vaulter Guinn Smith in 1947-48. This marks his third time on the World Top 10 list after a No. 3 ranking for 2023 and a No. 2 ranking the previous year. In 2024, he posted eight wins and broke the longest-standing men's world record in the sport, throwing the discus 74.35m (243-11) in April while competing unattached. Four months later, he uncorked the second-longest throw in Olympic discus history (69.97m/229-6) on the way to a silver medal at the Games.
 
Rogers' No. 1 ranking is her second straight. Already the first Cal woman to achieve best-in-the-world status, she also became first woman in program history to earn four appearances on the global top-10 list, having been ranked No. 2 for the 2022 season and No. 8 for 2021. In the 2024 season, she only missed the top of the podium once, notching seven wins that included a gold medal at the Olympics, becoming the first female medalist in program history and the fifth Canadian woman in history to earn gold in any sport.
 
Bell stepped away from track & field for several years after graduation before returning to the sport full-time in 2024 and becoming a middle-distance star. She earned both indoor and outdoor UK 1500m titles on her way to a World Indoor Championships finals appearance and a European Championships silver medal, later setting an English record of 3:56.54 before bettering that at her first Olympics with a bronze medal time of 3:52.61, good for the all-time British record.
                                                                                                                                                                                                  
McMorris' No. 8 U.S. ranking marks the first time in his career that he has broken into the national top-10 list. A 2023 All-American and three-time NCAA Championships qualifier, he crossed 8000 points in the decathlon for the first time in his career at the 2024 Brutus Hamilton Invitational, totaling 8015 with eight wins out of 10 events. Over the summer, he was part of the USA squad that defeated Germany in the annual Thorpe Cup, with McMorris himself taking gold with a new lifetime best of 8163. He currently owns five program all-time top-10 marks, including the No. 2 heptathlon and No. 4 decathlon spots, and is the first Cal man to make the U.S. decathlon list since Mike Morrison in 2011.
 
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