Once again, Oregon’s men’s track and field team and Oregon Track Club Elite have teamed up to produce a unique feature event for this year’s Oregon Twilight meet.
A two-team men’s distance medley relay will be the focus of today’s meet, which begins at 5 p.m. at Hayward Field. The relay — which consists of four legs of 1,200, 400, 800 and 1,600 meters, in that respective order — is contested for a national championship indoors but not outdoors.
“Our focus is on being competitive, not on our time,” said senior A.J. Acosta, who is expected to compete in the event. “We don’t get many opportunities to run the distance medley relay outdoors.”

Acosta, Matthew Centrowitz, Mike Berry, Elijah Greer and Boru Guyota are the five individuals that assistant athletic director Vin Lananna will use for the relay as he deems necessary.
“We’re still playing around with the lineups,” Lananna said.
OTC Elite will choose four runners among Nick Symmonds, Ashton Eaton, Tyler Mulder, Russell Brown and Andrew Wheating. Eaton, a three-time NCAA champion decathlete with the Ducks, will presumably run the 400-meter leg.
One of Brown or Wheating, who swept the 800 meters and 1,500 meters NCAA titles for the Ducks last season, will not participate. According to Lananna, who privately coaches both athletes, Wheating has been suffering from a calf ailment and may opt out of the event.
“If you don’t see him on the line, he won’t be healthy,” Lananna said.
Beyond the featured event, the Oregon men and women will have everyone available and healthy competing in the meet, in preparations for the Pacific-10 Conference Championships next week.
Senior quartermiler Michelle Williams, competing in just her second outdoor meet of the season, relishes the opportunity.
Williams had broken the fifth metatarsal bone in her left pinky toe during indoor season and has been slow to recover. She will run the 200 meters at the Twilight and pace the 800m for time.
“It’s been an emotional roller coaster for me,” she said.
“I go into Pac-10s with the thought of scoring. Right now, my motivation is to come back and score (at 400m).”
Tonight will be Throwback Night at Hayward Field in conjunction with an Oregon track and field alumni reunion. Fans are encouraged to attend the meet wearing retro attire.
Additionally, a short video on former Oregon track and field coach Bill Bowerman will be shown, featuring actor Sam Elliott. Elliott will be in attendance at the meet.
Pac-10 multi-events begin
While the rest of the Ducks are competing at — or watching — the Twilight, three Oregon multi-event athletes will be competing in Tucson to kick off the Pac-10 Championships.
Senior David Klech and junior Kevin Godfrey will represent the Ducks in the decathlon. Klech is a dark-horse conference title contender after scoring 7,533 points in his first-ever full decathlon, at the Mt. SAC relays on April 13-14. Freshman Dakotah Keys, a native of Sweet Home with a high school personal best of 7,204 points, will not compete because of injuries.@@http://www.registerguard.com/web/sports/26206149-41/klech-oregon-cook-david-event.html.csp@@
Senior Brianne Theisen, aiming for her third consecutive Pac-10 heptathlon title, was forced to withdraw from the event due to back soreness. The Humboldt, Saskatchewan, native has not completed a full heptathlon after suffering the injury at the NCAA Indoor Championships earlier this year.
The competition begins today at 4 p.m. and resumes Saturday at 3 p.m.