CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The Fighting Illini men’s and women’s track and field squads completed their first meet of the 2024 season on Saturday, Jan. 6, from the UI Armory. 509 fans attended the Illini Open and witnessed graduate student Amber Simpson shatter the weight throw program record with a 20.31m (66-7 3/4 ft.) heave, which placed her third in today’s competition. The previous record from Gia Lewis stood since 2002 (18.91m (62-0 1/2. ft.)).
“This meet is what we expected it to be. A lot of anticipation coming into this weekend, and we have a lot of youngsters,” said director of track and field/cross country Petros Kyprianou. “I’d say about 85% of the team did good, and 15% kind of struggled with a few things. It’s either technical or issues that can be controlled. We’re getting the rust off our wheels and trying to build off it, but overall, this was a good showing. Some of the highlights were Amber Simpson in the weight throw, Tori Thomas in the pole vault, Kam Garrett in the high jump, and the women in the 60m all competing hard.
“There are a lot of positives but also, we have a lot of work we need to do being the first meet of the year. Now, we shift our focus to Vanderbilt, where that will be our real opener. A lot of our top athletes competed in off events like Jessica McDowell in the 600m instead of the 400m, Elizabeth Ndudi and Sophia Beckmon in the 60m instead of the long jump. Some aches and pains here and there, but we’re going to try to overcome and show up in Nashville to build off the good things that happened today.”
TOP-10 PROGRAM MARKS
Junior Tori Thomas won the pole vault today with a mark that sits second in the Illinois record book and is currently second in the entire country at 4.42m (14-6). Sophomore Mia Morello is third in the Illini pole vault record book with her mark of 4.22m (13-10). Graduate student Leah Pasqualetti made her debut in the Orange and Blue and vaulted the program’s seventh-best mark 3.97m (13-0).
Freshman Jordan Koskondy made her debut today in the weight throw and put herself second on the school leaderboard with a 19.51m (64-0 1/4) toss. Sophomore Faith Deering moved herself up to eighth in the weight throw record book with a mark of 17.23m (56-6…
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