The Oregon track and field team set a new school record in the men’s 4×100-meter relay on May 2, collecting eight wins and seven top-10 program marks at the Desert Heat Classic in Tucson, Arizona. The quartet of Kai Graves-Blanks, PJ Ize-Iyamu, Grant Valley, and Jaelon Barbarin posted a time of 38.59 seconds to establish the new standard for the program.
This achievement surpassed the previous University of Oregon record of 38.72 seconds set by Spenser Schmidt, Cravon Gillespie, Rieker Daniel, and Oraine Palmer at the same venue during the 2019 Pac-12 Championships. With this performance, Oregon also took over as NCAA leader in the event based on times entering the weekend.
In women’s competition, Brazil Neal, Amirah Shaheed, Niya Clayton, and Lily Jones won their race with a season-best time of 43.66 seconds—nearly half a second faster than their previous best—and finished ahead of Grand Canyon University and host Arizona as the only teams under 44 seconds.
Graves-Blanks continued his strong showing with another win in the men’s 110-meter hurdles by clocking a personal best of 13.28 seconds to become number two all-time for Oregon in that event. He also recorded a personal best in the men’s 200 meters (20.59) for ninth place on Oregon’s outdoor list.
Ize-Iyamu achieved two wins: he ran a wind-legal personal best of 10.06 seconds in the men’s 100 meters—just off his all-conditions best from earlier this year—and now ranks among NCAA’s top ten nationally. Valley also improved his own mark to finish eighth overall with a time of 10.30 seconds.
Field events saw Daniel Thrana lead an Oregon sweep in javelin with a throw of over seventy-six meters while Pat Vialva and Vlad Turcu finished third and fourth respectively after recording season-best marks themselves.
Other notable performances included Titouan Bizet winning long jump with an all-conditions best that placed him inside NCAA’s top twenty this season; Liisa-Maria Lusti becoming just seventh woman ever at Oregon to jump over twenty-one feet outdoors; Tre Betts securing first place in triple jump; Micaela De Mello moving up university rankings after her result in women’s hurdles; Lakely Doht-Barron posting significant improvements across multiple sprints; Alicia Khunou achieving fifth-best shot put mark ever for an Oregon woman; Annaleise Taylor lowering her hurdle time to finish third overall; Ben Smith consistently surpassing twenty meters recently in shot put competitions.
Looking ahead, Oregon returns home next Friday for its Twilight meet at Hayward Field which will include Senior Day ceremonies along with youth-focused races like Kids Half Lapper as well as community events such as OTC Masters’ Mile.
