Several Gophers are favorite to bring home some hardware
The Minnesota Golden Gophers will look to turn some heads when they begin action at the 2025 Big Ten Track and Field Championships on Friday from historic Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. The Gopher men enter the Big Ten Championships ranked #6 in the latest USTFCCA rankings and have a legitimate chance to win the Big Ten Championships if they can put it all together. The Gopher women come into the weekend as the reigning Big Ten Champions, but are expected to take a slight step back this season as they enter the weekend ranked #26 in the nation.
Minnesota has several athletes on both the men’s and women’s side who should be expected to compete for individual Big Ten titles this weekend. On both sides, that begin with the hammer throwers.
The Gopher men’s hammer throw squad is ranked #1 in the nation, has the top two throwers in the country, and goes four deep an is a huge chance for the Gophers to pick up some team points. Sophomore Angelos Mantzouranis and redshirt senior Kostas Zaltos have arguably had the best season in NCAA history by a duo, thus far. Mantzouranis set the #3 mark in college history (78.61m | 257-11) while Zaltos (77.91m | 255-7) put up the #7 mark in NCAA history this year. At the Big Ten Championships Zaltos will look to reclaim his conference record in the hammer throw after last season Mantzouranis broke Zaltos’ meet record throw with a toss of 75.15m (246-7). The victory for Mantzouranis last season extended Minnesota’s streak of winning the hammer throw at the Big Ten Championships to four years (Zaltos three times, Mantzournais once). Minnesota’s four-straight titles in the men’s hammer throw at Big Tens is tied for the longest streak in conference history with themselves as the Gophers also won four in a row from 2010-2013. No program has ever won the hammer throw in five consecutive Big Ten Championship meets. In the USTFCCCA’s ‘Event Squad’ rankings the Gophers hold he highest season-average mark (69.47m) by any school since the USTFCCCA started the ‘Event Squad’ ranking system in 2018.
The women are not far behind. Anthonett Nabwe ranks No. 1 in the nation in both the hammer throw and the discus while she also is seventh in the shot put. Indoor All-American sophomore Hadley Streit sits fifth this season with a mark of 65.36m (214-5).
The Gopher men won four individual titles in 2024 at the Big Ten Championships and all of them return to defend their titles in 2025. Besides Mantzouranis Devin Augustine won the title in the 100m, Charles Godfred won the men’s long jump competition last season as a true freshman with a leap of 7.94m (26-0 3/4), and Jak Urlacher won the men’s pole vault competition with a lifetime best 5.51m (18-1). Godfred is ranked #1 in the Big Ten in the long jump this season.
Minnesota brings another competitor who is ranked #1 in the conference headed into the Championships in junior triple jumper Hakeem Ford. Additionally Minnesota has two other events that rank #2 this season in a loaded Big Ten. Christian Martin’s 13.49 time in the 110m hurdles this season made him the school record holder at Minnesota, and has him seeed #2 in the conference headed into the weekend. Additionally the men’s 4x100m relay team heads into the weekend with the second fastest time in the conference. The 2025 the quartet of Zion Campbell, Kion Benjamin, Aaron Charles and Devin Augustine have put together the #2 time by a Big Ten team this year only behind Southern Cal’s 38.41.
On the women’s side they return one 2024 Big Ten Champion to this year’s event in 3000m steeplechase winner Zoie Dundon. She has the second best time in the conference this season with Gopher freshman Isabelle Schmitz right behind her in third. Minnesota will try and see one of their triple jump athletes break through for the first time in 22 years. Diarra Sow and Brooke Moore rank #1 and #3 in the Big Ten this season.
Action kicks off at 2 PM Friday with the Men’s hammer throw. Prelims for a majority pf the track events will take place on Friday night with the finals set for Saturday and Sunday. Saturday’s events kick off at 2 PM as well, with a Noon start on Sunday. All three days will stream live on B1G+ with the track finals kicking off at 2:30 Sunday afternoon airing live on Big Ten Network. Additionally live results will be available HERE.