Track and Field Splits For Pepsi Florida Relays, Stanford Invitational

COLUMBIA, Mo. — University of Missouri track and field opens the 2024 outdoor season with a trip to Atlanta, Georgia, for the Yellow Jacket Invitational hosted by Georgia Tech on Saturday, March 16. 

MU will be one of 15 schools to send competitors to George C. Griffin Track this weekend. The Tigers will be joined by SEC compatriots Auburn, Georgia and Ole Miss. Saturday’s competition spans from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. CT.

• The Tigers won three events and scored 10 podium finishes at the Yellow Jacket Invitational, hosted by Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia.
• Austin Popplewell started his season with a victory in the men’s 5000m, crossing the finish line in a personal-best 14:32.60.
• Mitch Weber led a Missouri podium sweep in the men’s discus, hitting a 58.43m throw to win the event. Tarique George and Skylar Coffey followed in second (56.12m) and third (55.34m), respectively.
• Erin Zimmerman secured a victory in the women’s javelin throw, recording a personal-best 51.18m which moved her into sixth place on Missouri’s all-time women’s javelin list.
• In their first outing as a unit, the 4x100m relay squad of Quinton Brown, Robert Hines, Steven Marks and Marc Poland Jr. posted a 40.59 mark that ranks 10th in Mizzou history.

• Mitch Weber opened his final season in the Black and Gold on a mission and looks to make his last year his best one yet.
• The Saint Clair, Minnesota, product opened outdoor competition with a 58.43m discus throw that came close to his personal best to win the event title at the Yellow Jacket Invitational.
• His mark set two weekends ago ranks second in the SEC and No. 11 in the nation entering the third weekend of the season.
• The 2022 SEC Men’s Discus Champion is looking to maintain and improve his mark as he hopes to qualify for NCAA Championships – Round One for the fourth consecutive season.

• Erin Zimmerman got off to a hot start to her 2024 season, moving up the program’s women’s javelin program top-10 list with a personal-best mark.
• The Malvern, Pennsylvania, native threw a personal-record 51.18m to win the women’s javelin event at the Yellow Jacket Invitational and move up to sixth in Missouri track and field history.
• The Tiger veteran’s mark also sits among the top-15 throws in the country, as she ranks No. 12 in the nation in the event.
• The three-time NCAA Championships – Round One qualifier in women’s javelin looks to make the cut for the fourth consecutive campaign.

• At the Florida Relays, Missouri will see triple jumpers Euphenie Andre and Sterling Scott make their outdoor debuts fresh off All-American campaigns.
• In the 2023 outdoor season, Andre put together a remarkable campaign where she earned her second career All-America honor , finishing as USTFCCCA Second Team All-American in the women’s triple jump with a career-best 13.39m leap to finish 12th at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
• Later that summer, Andre became a silver medalist in the women’s triple jump at the 2023 NACAC U23 Championships, resetting her career best with a 13.42m mark.
• Scott’s collegiate career got off to a tremendous start in the 2024 indoor season, where he became Missouri’s first All-American in any event since 2019 in the men’s triple jump.
• The freshman from Starkville, Mississippi, qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships in his final jump of the season at the SEC Indoor Championships, earning a bronze medal at the event with a 16.14m jump.
• At the NCAA Indoor Championships, Scott finished 11th to earn a USTFCCCA All-America Second Team placement and finished as the best freshman men’s triple jumper in the nation.

• After a breakout 2024 indoor campaign, Alicia Burnett returns to the track to make her outdoor debut at the Florida Relays in the 100m and 200m.
• The St. Louis, Missouri, native broke Mizzou’s program record in the women’s 60m on Feb. 2 at the DeLoss Dodds Invitational, hitting a 7.28 clip in the event preliminaries before shattering her own mark with a 7.21 sprint in the final.
• The 7.21 mark helped her qualify for the women’s 60m at the NCAA Indoor Championships in March, where she finished 12th in the event to become a USTFCCCA Second Team All-American.
• With the All-American finish, Burnett became the first Missouri sprinter since 2016 to earn All-American status. Over the course of the indoor season, Burnett hit a mark under LaQuisha Jackson‘s previous record in the women’s 60m five times.

• High jumper Claudina Diaz will make her 2024 outdoor season debut at the Florida Relays and hope to replicate the success of the 2023 outdoor campaign.
• The standout from Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, topped the podium in all three regular-season meets she competed in, then placed among the top-five in the women’s at the SEC Outdoor Championships and the NCAA West Preliminary Round.
• At the NCAA Outdoor Championships, Diaz finished fifth in the women’s high jump with a 1.84m mark, earning USTFCCCA First Team All-America status.
• She became the first Missouri women’s high jumper to become an All-American since Karissa Roman secured Second Team honors in 2020. Her First Team placement also marked the first time that a Mizzou women’s high jumper finished as a First Team All-American since Hanne Skei Andersen at the 1994 NCAA Outdoor Championships.

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