NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Following the conclusion of the indoor campaign earlier this month, the Yale men's track and field team is now ready to take on the 2024 outdoor season. The focal point of the year will be May's Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, held in Princeton, N.J., with athletes aiming to set personal bests and fine-tune their competitive edge along the way.
Despite the indoor season having wrapped up just a handful of weeks ago, the first outdoor meet of the year is already just around the corner. On Mar. 22-23, a group of Yale athletes will compete at the Knights Invite in Orlando, Fla., where the warm weather should provide ideal conditions for long throws and jumps as well as fast times. Just a week later, another group will head to the Raleigh Relays in Raleigh, N.C., with competition running from Mar. 28-30. The rest of the Bulldogs will open their seasons at the UConn Dog Fight Invite in Storrs, Conn., on Mar 30.
As usual, it will be team captain
Matt Appel who will lead the charge for the Bulldogs. He is fresh off an impressive third-place performance at the Ivy League Indoor Championships in the shot put. Switching focus to his favored event -- the discus -- should give Appel confidence to place even higher as he moves into outdoors. Fellow throwers
Nolan Recker and
Chris Ward both also impressed indoors, with Recker setting a school record of 20.39m in the weight throw. Alongside them, look for
Chu Aneyiagu,
Nathan Lebowitz,
Jake Sun and
Alex Sundberg to continue to build upon a strong winter of work.
Also placing third at Ivies indoors was
Leo Brewer, who will look to translate his 8:03.86 3000m PR into fast times over the 1500m and 5000m over the coming months. His training partner
Winslow Atkeson, who scored at outdoor Heps in the 3000m steeplechase last year, will also aim to capitalize on the season of his life indoors in which he became the third Yale athlete ever to break 4 minutes in the mile. Also in the 1500m this season will be the likes of
Elon Abergel, Tanish Chettiar, Brian Gamble,
Liam Garrett, Owen Karas,
Calvin Katz,
Braden King,
Ronan Luff,
Caden Montini and
Jack Sendek. Over the shorter 800m distance, look out for indoor Heps finalists
Thomas Cirrito and
Amaré Fields as well as
Chris Brown, Aaron Cullen, Austin Montini and
Drake Prince.
Over the longer running events -- the 5000m and 10,000m -- an equally strong group of Bulldogs will be looking to make their mark. Leading them will be
Sean Kay, who qualified for the NCAA Championships meet during cross country season and will look to do the same over 10,000m outdoors. Alongside him will be
Alex Mader, Stephen Moody, Varun Oberai, Kenan Pala, Martin Riddell,
Henry Saul and
Will Sheehy.
In the sprints, it was
Kit Colson and
Cristian Pereira who stepped up for Yale during the indoor campaign, with Colson placing a fantastic fourth in the 60m at Heps. They will both be aiming to make their mark over 100m outdoors, along with
Mason Evans,
Andrew Fu, Shaun Gold, James Grindle, Lucas Mylon and
Drew Smith. Many of them will also go over 200m with teammates such as
Andrew Farr,
Jacob Kao and
Finnegan Quinn. In the longer 400m distance it will be
Simon Jupp, Aaron Miller and
Colin Quinn who will line up for the Bulldogs after a strong indoor campaign for each of them. The sprinters will also combine in various permutations for the 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams throughout the year, buoyed by some strong performances indoors.
Finally, look for
Brian Di Bassinga and
Isiah Udofia to build upon their medal-winning performances indoors as they go in the triple jump and long jump respectively.
Jamaal Darlington, meanwhile, goes in the high jump. In the pole vault,
Elliot Wessel and
Marcus Young will be back in action for the Bulldogs.
As evidenced by the medals won and all-time performances notched during the indoor campaign, the Bulldogs are in a good spot and ready to continue taking real steps of progress over the coming months outdoors.
