A Chinese track and field sprinter has scored a staggering 462 in the national college entrance exam, or gaokao, earning her a place in the country’s top universities.

Liu Xiajun, 19, took the gaokao for the second time earlier this month after her score last summer fell short of admission to the country’s best school, Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Liu, who is from the city of Ziyang in southwest China’s Sichuan province, rejected an offer from the prestigious Fudan University in Shanghai in 2024, considered China’s second best, to chase a spot at the institution in Beijing.

“I was very surprised [when I got my results] and asked my teacher: ‘Is there a mistake in the results?’,” Liu said.

“I believe that the most important factor in achieving such results before entering formal education is perseverance.

“Despite the immense pressure of resitting the exam, you cannot think about giving up.

Arizona volleyball head coach Rita Stubbs and her staff secured their second commitment for the class of 2027 this week. Outside hitter Asia Udo-Ema attended Arizona’s camp just before the commitment period opened. She announced her commitment to the program on Thursday evening.

Prep Dig has Udo-Ema as the No. 18 player in the country in their national rankings. She is the No. 8 player in California and the No. 4 outside hitter, according to the outlet. VB Adrenaline has her at No. 35 in the 2027 class based on its rating system. Prep Volleyball noted her in its write-up of the standout players on the second day of the Triple Crown NIT last February.

The 6-foot native of Riverside, Calif. plays club volleyball for Forza 1 North. Her highlights can be found on her HUDL account.

Udo-Ema is no stranger to the Wildcats. She is close to former Arizona men’s basketball players Gabe York and Carter Bryant.

York was one of the people she contacted when she decided to commit to the Wildcats, and she refers to him as her godfather in her social media posts. Bryant reached out to congratulate her on social media. Bryant attended Corona (CA) Centennial High School, where Udo-Ema is entering her junior year.

Udo-Ema played 184 sets in her freshman and sophomore seasons and has been very consistent in her stats. All of her numbers improved her sophomore season, but they were not dramatically outside the range she showed her rookie year. She averages 4.3 kills per set with a .440 kill percentage and a .326 hitting percentage.

She has been a consistent server with an ace rate of 13.9 percent and 0.5 aces per set. On the defensive side, she averages 0.3 blocks per set and 6.8 digs per set. In serve receive, she has 93 reception errors in 1,013 attempts. She receives the serve 5.5 times per set.

Udo-Ema joins setter Tinsley Welker out of the Houston area as Arizona’s two known commits for 2027. Welker is ranked as the No. 50 player in the 2027 class by Prep Dig and a three-star recruit by Prep Volleyball.

Lead photo by Mike Christy / Arizona Athletics

Bill Dellinger, Olympic bronze medalist in the 5,000 meters, mentor to the legendary Steve Prefontaine, and for more than 30 years a winning University of Oregon coach, died on June 27 at age 91.

Dellinger was an outsider in the star-studded 5,000-meter final at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, but he coped with the rain-soaked cinder track, the wildly varying pace, and the mass sprint on the final lap to emerge as a surprise bronze medalist, while Bob Schul even more dramatically won gold. Ralph Hill (silver, 1932), Paul Chelimo (silver 2016, bronze 2020), and Grant Fisher (bronze, 2024) are the other Americans to medal at that distance.

In a very different crisis, the terrorist siege and massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Dellinger showed the same cool judgment under pressure. As coach to Prefontaine, he took the distraught 21-year-old into his own accommodation, and then drove him out of the city for a day of calm privacy, enabling him to reorient for the fraught 5,000-meter final. Prefontaine narrowly missed a medal, but it was Dellinger who put him in a position to challenge as unforgettably as he did.

Bill (William Cornelius) Dellinger was a lifelong contributor to the sport of running, who needs to be defined by more than his connections to Prefontaine and Bill Bowerman. A committed man of Oregon, he was born in Grants Pass. In ninth grade in Springfield, his running ability caught not only the coach’s eye, but that of future novelist Ken Kesey, who recalled watching him from the school bus, “running to school instead of riding, rain or shine, the very sort of nut you’d expect to win the state cross-country title” (as retold by Kenny Moore in Bowerman and the Men of Oregon).

As a sophomore at the University of Oregon, early in Bowerman’s coaching regime, Dellinger first showed his ability to pull a surprise success under pressure, when he was the unexpected winner of the NCAA 1-mile title in 1954. Bowerman described that as “my greatest and most satisfying experience.” Dellinger went on to be a three-time All-American, won every collegiate cross-country race, placed second and first in the next NCAA track finals, and won the U.S. Olympic Trials 5,000 in an American record, to qualify for the 1956 Olympics.

Bob Schul (left) and Bill Dellinger display their medals after winning gold and bronze at 5,000 meters in the 1964 Olympics.

That year he also graduated (with a major in education), married his wife, Marol, and lowered the U.S. 5,000 record three times, to 14:16.2. But in Melbourne’s extreme heat he failed to finish the Olympic race. The failure deepened his resolve. He had joined the Air Force, and while posted to a radar station in Washington state, he spent the next year training solo twice a day on a remote Olympic Peninsula beach, counting strides to estimate track distances. That made him one of the first American track runners to persist at a world-class level after leaving college. His rewards included more American records, at 1500 meters (3:41.5), and world records at two and three miles indoors (8:49.9, 13:37.0).

One of his finest moments was a race when he fearlessly challenged the top Soviets in a tense U.S.S.R.-U.S.A. dual meet in Moscow, at the height of the Cold War, marginally losing the race (in the same time as the winner), but winning a standing ovation from the Russian crowd.

His second Olympics, Rome 1960, were another disappointment, but Dellinger was now a teacher and coach at Springfield’s Thurston High School, and came back under the direct guidance of Bowerman. In his third Olympics, in 1964, he got it right. It was Dellinger’s sudden attack with 600 meters to go that ignited the race. He kept fighting as more fancied runners faded. He grabbed third from France’s Michel Jazy in the last strides, in 13:49.8, his outdoors personal record, despite the adverse conditions and disruptive tactics.

He then retired to coach at Lane Community College, until in 1967 he was hired as Bowerman’s assistant at Oregon. He took over as cross-country head coach in 1969, the freshman year of the phenom Prefontaine. Dellinger took most of the responsibility for the development of that passionate and complex young man, and deserves credit for his success. Their relationship and behavior together was often said to be (as Moore writes in Bowerman) “like brothers.”

Dellinger faced his greatest personal challenge when Prefontaine was killed in a car wreck in 1975. Moore comments, “Dellinger was so shaken by Pre’s death that he doubted he could ever grow personally close to an athlete again.” He had succeeded Bowerman as head coach in 1973, vowing to continue his legacy, though always more reserved and thoughtful and less egotistic in style. Tension arose when Dellinger became affiliated with Adidas, designing a shock-absorbing road shoe that was in competition with Bowerman’s Nike waffle shoes. Another problem was Bowerman’s disinclination to give Dellinger credit for Prefontaine’s development. The breach was eventually healed on Dellinger’s initiative. Moore describes him as a man with a strong sense of justice who remembered his indebtedness to his former mentor. Tom Jordan, author of Pre, acknowledged Dellinger’s “always honest remembrances.”

As Oregon’s head track and field coach from 1973 to 1998, Dellinger played a significant part in coaching Olympians Alberto Salazar, Rudy Chapa, Matt Centrowitz Sr., and other major running talents, including some post-collegiates like Olympic marathoner Ron Tabb. He guided Oregon to four NCAA cross-country team championships, with five second places, and four thirds; and to the NCAA track and field outdoor championship in 1984. He guided 108 All-Americans. His straightforward style proved apt for the often rebellious university culture of the 1970s, as well as the administrative and fund-raising aspects of the coach’s duties. He retired in 1998 because of a prostate issue.

Dellinger was distance coach for the USA Olympic team in 1984. In 2001, he was inducted into the USATF Hall of Fame and the National Distance Running Hall of Fame. USA Track & Field gave him the Legend Coach Award, and he was inducted into the Collegiate Coaching Hall of Fame. He is honored by the annual inter-collegiate Bill Dellinger Invitational Cross-Country race in Springfield, Oregon. He suffered a stroke in 2000, but resumed some individual coaching. He had surgery for a stomach tumor in 2012.

In the 1997 movie Prefontaine, Dellinger’s character was played by Ed O’Neill, and in Without Limits (also the Prefontaine story, 1998) by Dean Norris. A short documentary, The Magician, was released in 2018. Tinker Hatfield of Nike, who was coached by him, said that Dellinger will in time be regarded not only as Bowerman’s heir, but as his equal.

But his full legacy is wholly his own. As an athlete, Dellinger was a record-breaking leader in America for eight years, and he won an Olympic bronze medal in one of history’s great races. As a coach, his life’s work earned him adulation in his last years whenever he appeared at any Oregon event, and the tributes of a large following of admirers on social media on every birthday.

Roger Robinson is a highly-regarded writer and historian and author of seven books on running. His recent Running Throughout Time: the Greatest Running Stories Ever Told has been acclaimed as one of the best ever published. Roger was a senior writer for Running Times and is a frequent Runner’s World contributor, admired for his insightful obituaries. A lifetime elite runner, he represented England and New Zealand at the world level, set age-group marathon records in Boston and New York, and now runs top 80-plus times on two knee replacements. He is Emeritus Professor of English at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and is married to women’s running pioneer Kathrine Switzer. 

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (June 27, 2025) —The U.S. Girls U19 National Team secured its spot in the gold medal match of the 2025 NORCECA Pan American Cup with a 3-0 (25-22, 25-14, 25-20) win over the Dominican Republic in the first semifinal match on Friday in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

The U.S. (4-0) will meet the winner of the second semifinal between Mexico and host Canada for gold tomorrow, Saturday, June 28 at 1 p.m. PT.

MATCH STATISTICS (PDF)

For the fourth time in as many matches, the U.S. held a double-digit margin in kills (41-26). The U.S. squad had one more block (6-5) and ace (5-4), and two fewer errors.

Each of the match’s top four scorers were U.S. players with Megan Hodges leading the way with 14 points on 12 kills, a block and an ace. Middle blocker Taylor Harrington (six kills, two blocks and match-high three aces) and outside hitter Olivia Henry (nine kills and two blocks) each scored 11 points, with Henry recording a team-high seven successful receptions.

Libero Cala Haffner posted a match-best with 12 digs and finished with six successful receptions. Setter Taimane Ainu’u led the U.S. offense to a .276 hitting percentage. Outside Westley Matavao added nine points on eight kills and an ace and was second on the team with seven digs.

“It was a really fun match tonight,” Matavao said. “Each of us did our jobs and we played as one unit. We had a really good time out there on the court. I’m so excited for the final tomorrow. Go USA!”

A Hodges kill gave the U.S. a 17-14 lead in the first set before the Dominican Republic scored six of the next eight points to take a 20-19 lead. The U.S. rebounded after a timeout to end the set on its own 6-2 run. After a Dominican Republic error, the U.S. took the lead for good on a Harrington ace, Hodges kill and Rautenberg kill.

Hodges ended the set with her fourth kill and sixth point. Harrington added three kills to her ace for four points, and Henry notched four points on three kills and a block.

After falling behind 4-0 to start the second set, the U.S. took control with a 17-3 run to amass a 10-point lead. Harrington scored five points on three kills, a block and an ace in that stretch and for the set, while Montavao contributed five points on four kills and an ace.

The third set went back and forth before the U.S. used a four-point to take the lead for good at 19-16. Henry started the stretch with a kill and a block. Hodges scored on an overpass to extend the lead to five points, 23-18, and scored again for a 24-20 lead. An error ended the match.

Hodges led all players with five kills in the final set. Henry added four points on three kills and a block.

2025 U.S. Girls U19 National Team for the NORCECA Pan American Cup
(Name, Position, Height, Birth Year, Hometown, High School, Region)

1 Taimane Ainu’u (S, 5-11, 2009, Kapolei, Hawaii, Iolani HS, Aloha)
2 Nejari Crooks (OPP, 6-1, 2009, High Point, N.C., Wesleyan Christian Academy, Carolina)
3 Cala Haffner (L, 5-8, 2009, Fort Wayne, Ind., Carroll HS, Hoosier)
4 Taylor Harrington (MB, 6-3, 2009, Arlington, Va., Wakefield HS, Chesapeake)
5 Olivia Henry (OH, 6-5, 2009, Bayside, N.Y., IMG Academy, Florida)
6 Megan Hodges (MB/OPP, 6-5, 2009, Ladera Ranch, Calif., San Juan Hills HS, Southern California)
7 Marissa Jones (S, 6-2, 2009, Atlanta, Ga., Woodward Academy, Southern)
8 Kari Knotts (OH, 6-3, 2010, Marietta, Ga., Hightower Trail MS, Southern)
11 Westley Matavao (OH, 6-0, 2009, Ontario, Calif., Mater Dei HS, Southern California)
13 Shayla Rautenberg (MB, 6-3, 2009, Pleasant Dale, Neb., Milford HS, Great Plains)
14 Ireland Real (OH, 6-4, 2009, San Clemente, Calif., Santa Margarita Catholic HS, Southern California)
18 Kyla Williams (MB, 6-4, 2009, Cleveland, Ohio, Gilmour Academy, Ohio Valley)

Alternates
9 Pulelehua Laikona (L, 5-8, 2009, Gilbert, Ariz., Mesa HS, Arizona)
10 Leilani Lamar (OH, 6-2, 2009, Tampa, Fla., Tampa Preparatory School, Florida)
12 McKenna McIntosh (OH, 6-1, 2009, Stockton, Calif., St. Mary’s HS, Northern California)
15 Josalyn Samuels (S, 6-1, 2009, Harrisburg, S.D., Harrisburg HS, North Country)
16 Marlee Steiner (MB, 6-4, 2009, St. Louis, Mo., Lindbergh HS, Gateway)
17 Caroline Ward (OPP, 6-0, 2009, Lizton, Ind., Tri-West Hendricks HS, Hoosier)
19 Shaye Witherspoon (OH, 6-3, 2009, Wildwood, Mo., Lafayette HS, Gateway)

Coaches
Head Coach: Jamie Morrison (Texas A&M)
Assistant Coach: Michelle Chatman Smith (LOVB)
Assistant Coach: Maggie Eppright (LOVB)
Performance Analyst: Michael Bouril (Mississippi State)
Athletic Trainer: Rebecca Himes (PVF)
Team Lead: Alex Purvey (NTDP)

2025 Girls U19 Pan American Cup Schedule
All times Pacific
All matches will be livestreamed on Volleyball Canada YouTube

June 24:  USA def. Venezuela, 3-0 (25-9, 25-23, 25-21)
June 25: USA def. Mexico, 3-0 (25-21, 25-21, 25-23)
June 26: USA def. Puerto Rico, 3-1 (20-25, 25-20, 25-14, 27-25)
June 27: USA def. Dominican Republic, 3-0 (25-22, 25-14, 25-20)
June 28: 1 p.m. Gold Medal Match, USA vs. Canada/Mexico

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Reach Payton Caldwell at @pcaldwelltimeswv