The end of the track and field season saw 17 current or former Ducks head to Tokyo for the 2025 World Athletics Championships. There, Oregon continued to support its legacy as a powerhouse in the sport as alumni medaled and placed across multiple events — including a gold-medal win from Cole Hocker.

Hocker, the 1500m gold medalist in Paris a year ago, was eliminated in the semifinal round in Tokyo. Traditionally a sit-and-kick runner, the American found himself on the inside rail with 50m to go and made a move that was judged to have broken the “jostling” laws with a shove of German runner Robert Farken. Like the 2025 USATF Outdoor Championships ear- lier in the summer, Hocker’s better event was instead the 5000m.

He qualified from the heats there with a 13:13.41 time, third-best among all competitors. In the final, Hocker surged from 12th at the bell to first down the stretch with the kick that has become his trademark. With his win in 12:58.30, the former NCAA and Olympic champion became the first American to win the event at the World Championships since Bernard Lagat in 2007.

Jorinde Van Klinken, who transferred to Oregon from Arizona State University, threw a season-best 67.50m in the women’s discus to win world silver. It’s her first World Championships medal after silvers in both the discus and shot put in Rome at the European Championships last year, and bronze in the shot put in Munich in 2022. Van Klinken finished 22nd overall in the shot put heats in Tokyo.

Men’s discus world record holder Mykolas Alekna, who transferred from the University of California, Berkeley to Oregon following the 2025 NCAA outdoor season, finished second in the event in Tokyo. Alekna, who also has an Olympic silver medal and Diamond League Final win under his belt at just 22-years-old, will compete for the Ducks in 2025-26. In the final, which saw multiple athletes struggle due to the rain and a slick ring, Alekna threw 67.84m on his second attempt — only bested by a sixth attempt 70.47m effort from Swede Daniel Ståhl.

In her first season as a professional athlete, former NCAA women’s shot put record holder Jaida Ross capped her campaign with a 19.01m throw in the final — good for eighth in the world. A Medford, Oregon native, Ross spent her entire collegiate career at Hayward Field, where she won the Division I outdoor title in 2024, before exhausting her eligibility following the Ducks’ 2025 NCAA indoor championship and signing with Nike.

Alaysha Johnson ran a 12.76 time in the 100m hurdles heats before bowing out in the semifinal round with a 12.66-second effort that left her 0.13 seconds off qualification, while Jillian Weir logged a 67.98m throw in the women’s hammer to finish 13th in the heats.

After winning bronze in the 1500m final in Tokyo with a 3:55.16 effort, Jessica Hull advanced from the heats in the women’s 800m after tripping in a congested field on the opening lap and submitting a successful protest. She then sealed her slot in the semifinal as the fastest non-auto qualifier with a 1:57.15 Australian and Oceania area record — becoming the first woman to hold both the national 800m and 1500m records concurrently. Hull finished seventh in the 800m final with a 1:57.30 time. Also in the 1500m final, Klaudia Kazimierska — who shone as part of Oregon’s dominant women’s middle-distance core in 2025 — ran 3:57.95 to break the NCAA All-Dates record and move into seventh in the world.

In addition to Hull and Kazimierska, six other current or former Ducks were also entered in the women’s 1500, including distance stars Şilan Ayyildiz, Wilma Nielsen and Mia Barnett, who finished 40th, 49th and 52nd in the 1500m heats, Nikki Hiltz, who began their collegiate career at Oregon before transferring to the University of Arkansas, finished fifth in the final, former Duck Susan Lokayo Ejore qualified for the semifinal, where she ran 4:09.28 to miss the final by less than a second, and incoming transfer Bahiya El Arfaoui, who finished 53rd in the heats.

On the men’s side, NCAA 2025 indoor men’s 800m champion Matthew Erickson competed in the same event at the World Championships, where he ran 1:48.49 to finish 56th overall in the heats. Former Duck Aaron Bienenfeld finished 23rd in the men’s 10,000m final, with a 29:51.41 time.

Oregon will host the Bill Dellinger Invitational on Oct. 10. It continues to prepare to defend its 2024 women’s Big Ten title before heading to the indoor track in the winter to defend its men’s and women’s Big Ten sweep and women’s NCAA indoor title from the 2025 season.