Alekna Earns 23rd Berth On The Bowerman Watch List

Audrey Allen

Mykolas Alekna’s legendary collegiate season will come to a close at next week’s NCAA Outdoor Championships.

T&F6/5/2025 1:16 PM | By: Cal Athletics

World Record-Holder Will Compete For NCAA Title In Eugene On June 13

The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) announced Thursday that California track & field’s Mykolas Alekna, who owns the world record in the discus, has appeared on The Bowerman Watch List for the 23rd time in his career. This is the last watch list to be released this season for The Bowerman, which is awarded each December to the top collegiate men’s and women’s track & field athletes of the year.
 
Alekna, a two-time semifinalist for the award, hopes to advance to that group once more when the men’s honorees are announced June 26. Those 10 men will be winnowed down to three finalists, to be announced July 1.
 

The Olympic silver medalist’s outstanding season opened in April, starting with the Brutus Hamilton Invitational at Edwards Stadium in which he threw a then-world lead and ACC record of 70.09m (229-11). One week later, he traveled to Ramona, Oklahoma, and shattered his own world record twice in the same series to improve his mark to 75.56m (247-10), then started off the month of May by obliterating his own meet record with a toss of 71.29m (233-10). Alekna later won his third conference title with a meet and facility record of 69.86m (229-2) at the ACC Outdoor Championships at Wake Forest, then reset the meet and facility records at the NCAA West Regional, hosted at Texas A&M, with a mark of 72.12m (236-7) to advance to his third NCAA Outdoor Championships, which will be contested in Eugene, Oregon, from June 11-14. Over the past two months, he has been named the USTFCCCA National Men’s Athlete of the Week twice and an ACC Men’s Field Athlete of the week thrice.
 
Three men (Alekna, Ole Miss’s Tarik O’Hagan-Robinson and North Carolina’s Ethan Strand) appeared on every single Watch List this season. Of those, Alekna is the only one to do so in multiple seasons, also appearing on every Watch List in 2023.
 
The Bowerman Men’s Watch List – Pre-NCAA Outdoor Championships
Mykolas Alekna, California (Discus)
Jordan Anthony, Arkansas (Sprints)
James Corrigan, BYU (Mid-Distance/Steeple)
Nathaniel Ezekiel, Baylor (Sprints/Hurdles)
Ishmael Kipkurui, New Mexico (Distance)
Liam Murphy, Villanova (Mid-Distance/Distance)
Tarik Robinson-O’Hagan, Ole Miss (Throws)
Habtom Samuel, New Mexico (Distance)
Ethan Strand, North Carolina (Mid-Distance/Distance)
Ja’Kobe Tharp, Auburn (Hurdles)
 
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