Several distance runners from the California track & field team will make an appearance at Stanford's Cobb Track and Angell Field on Friday evening, competing in the men's and women's 800m and men's 1500m at the Payton Jordan Invitational to close out the month of April.
 
PAYTON JORDAN INVITATIONAL (April 25, Cobb Track and Angell Field, Stanford, Calif.)
Meet Info/Schedule
Live Results
 
CALIFORNIA ENTRIES (MEN) – PAYTON JORDAN INVITATIONAL
Program Top 10 holders marked with an asterisk
800m – Lamarr Kirk Jr.
1500m – Caden Carney, Rowan FitzGerald, Alexander Lodewick, Justin Pretre*
 
CALIFORNIA ENTRIES (WOMEN) – PAYTON JORDAN INVITATIONAL
800m – Zoe Lahanas
 
 
LAST TIME OUT (MT. SAC RELAYS, BRYAN CLAY INVITATIONAL – APRIL 17-19, 2025)
Garrett MacQuiddy broke the 10-year-old 1500m school record with a time of 3:38.50 at the Bryan Clay Invitational, while Justin Pretre rose to No. 8 in program history with a time of 3:42.72 in the same event. At the Mt. SAC Relays, three shot putters – Lucija Leko (No. 2, 16.54m/54-3.25), Caisa-Marie Lindfors (No. 7, 15.83m/51-22.5) and Giavonna Meeks (No. 10, 15.35m/50-4.5) posted program top-10 marks; Lindfors also won the women's discus elite section with a throw of 61.44m (207-3). Freshman sensation Valentina Savva broke her own U23 Cypriot record and Cal rookie record with a mark of 69.20m (227-0) that also ranks third in program history, while Charlie Dang raised his Cal No. 10 javelin mark to 64.17m (210-6). On the track, hurdlers Loreal Wilson (400m hurdles, 58.71) and Donovan Bradley (110m hurdles, 13.75) improved their standings on the program all-time lists to No. 5 and No. 9, respectively, while Amelia Wardle-Stacey won the 10,000m with Cal's No. 9 time in history (34:21.09).
 
ATHLETE OF THE WEEK
Valentina Savva was named the ACC Women's Freshman of the Week for the third time on April 22, becoming the first Cal woman since fellow hammer thrower Camryn Rogers in 2022 to earn a conference award three times in the same season. Savva currently sits at No. 4 on the NCAA hammer list, with her PR of 69.20m (227-0) over nine feet ahead of the next-best freshman in the rankings. She is just three inches away from the all-time Cypriot record, which has stood since 2009.
 
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 in April 2025, 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. Most recently, he was named the top discus thrower in the world by Track & Field News and recorded his 20th-straight appearance on The Bowerman Watch List, becoming just the fourth man in award history to make a watch list in four different calendar years.
 
LEADERS OF THE ACC
Midway through April, Cal has three athletes sitting atop the ACC rankings in four outdoor standard events. On the men's side, Mykolas Alekna leads the entire world in the discus, while Johnny Goode has the fastest 200m and 400m times in the conference. The women are represented by freshman hammer thrower Valentina Savva, who also ranks No. 4 in the NCAA.
 
BEARS COLLECT FOUR INDOOR ALL-AMERICA HONORS
Cal's quartet of NCAA qualifiers each picked up an All-America nod at the Indoor Championships, marking the highest combined total by the program since 2018. Giavonna Meeks claimed her second-straight First-Team recognition after placing fourth in the weight throw, while David Foster took home his fourth Second-Team honor with a 15th-place finish in the 60m. Tyler Burns (pole vault - 12th) and Seth Johnson (heptathlon - 15th) were each named to the Second Team following their debuts on the NCAA big stage.
 
ALL-ACC HONOREES
Cal's men earned eight All-ACC honors and its women five at the Bears' first-ever ACC Indoor Championships on March 1-3, with the team's four medalists named First-Team All-ACC: Giavonna Meeks was Cal's first champion of the meet, posting a new meet record in the weight throw,  while top sprinter David Foster won his first conference title in the 60m after outpacing the field by .08 seconds. Jason Plumb and Tyler Burns took bronze in the long jump and pole vault, respectively, marking the second time in each of their careers that they have placed third at a conference meet. Men's Second-Team honors went to Johnny Goode (400m), Victor Ezike Jr. (high jump), Riley Knott (high jump), Trevor Rogers (long jump) and Seth Johnson (heptathlon); on the women's side, recognition went to Aysha Shaheed (60m), Asjah Atkinson (60m hurdles), Lucija Leko (shot put) and Valentina Savva (weight throw). Rogers, Shaheed, Atkinson, Leko and Savva also set new program top-10 marks with their performances.
 
THROW LOUD AND PROUD
Cal's throws squad - which has already set six indoor and nine outdoor program top-10 marks this season - looks prepped for 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 javelin specialist Carolina Visca set the school record as a rookie and was also named an All-American in 2023. 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 Giavonna Meeks, who was an All-American weight thrower at Vanderbilt and reached the U.S. Olympic Trials in the hammer. 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) and hammer throw (No. 7).
 
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