More than other races I’ve reported at, the Penn Relays is one where you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can watch a great race or participate in a fun interview, but it’s hard to do both with back-to-back events. You can rarely see the action from the mixed zone, and the official policy is that you’re not allowed to delay an interview once the team is called over.
We mostly turn our heads when we can, and break our focus at the finish line.
Villanova takes 4xMile Relay!
The biggest head-turner was likely hometown hero Villanova’s victory in the 4x mile relay. This also marked Marco Langon’s first victory as an anchor after a number of very public disappointments (including one yesterday). It was personally incredibly satisfying to see him finally net a win in the time I’ve followed him. It must have been to everyone else, because Langon and teammates Sean Donoghue, Ben Thomas, and Bailey Habler got such enormous cheers in the mixed zone.
More than usual, the athletes are in a hurry. The winning 4 X 1500 team from North Carolina State had to catch a flight and could only give me 1.5 minutes. Some schools, like Villanova and Oregon, have handlers that keep a tight leash on the athletes and try to move them along. I had good experiences with both teams, but to the degree that I might not get my request for an interview, I can understand the demands on of the handlers’ jobs.
The Olympic Development Mile
The men’s Olympic development mile further enhanced the Villanova fever in the stadium as 2024 graduate Charlie O’Donovan won the Olympic developmental mile immediately after the Villanova win, and his teammates smothered him with hugs.
When I discovered that three of the five Villanova runners in the mixed zone were Irish, I asked coach Marcus O’Sullivan (as you can guess, also Irish) about the Irish connection. He explained that Villanova was founded by Irish Augustinians for the express purpose of serving Irish immigrants. You can even major in Irish studies and be employed in the Irish Studies Center. In fact, O’Sullivan is still O’Donovan’s coach, and he’s been close with the entire O’Donovan family since they come from the same town.
In the men’s Olympic developmental mile, I was also interested in 4th-place finisher Ben Allen, who recently finished in the top 10 of the USATF National Indoor Championships. This didn’t interest me as much as the fact that Allen is coaching my nephew’s high school in Dobbs Ferry, New York (The Masters School), along with pros Jack Salisbury and Hazim Miwad. Why does it take three elite runners to coach a high school? I have no idea, and I still don’t get it AFTER talking to Ben, but Ben seems thrilled with high school coaching, and my nephew’s team seems happy too.
The battle in the 4×800 meters…
In the 4 X 8, Penn State scored a major coup as Hayley Kitching beat Olympian Juliette Whitaker (Stanford) and NCAA champ Makayla Paige (UNC) to take a win by over two seconds.
The closeness of event start times made it difficult for events to double up on both distance relays. That’s why I at least give credit for the doubling ducks (their new official team nickname, perhaps?) of Oregon. They finished 4th of 4 in the 4 X 1500 and 9th of 14 in the 4 X 800, but at least they showed up.
And hey, they didn’t leave their fans disappointed. I saw two women decked out in Oregon gear near the finish line stands. To my surprise, they were not runners but alumni of Oregon.
“I love watching Oregon race since I first experienced Hayward Field in person. It’s impossible to live in Tracktown, USA, and not fall for the sport,” said Colette Beaudoin.
As we all know, track and field fans are rare (outside of Jamaica) among non-running populations, so USATF marketing really needs to treasure people like these. Perhaps, they should invite them to a lab and run them through some tests so they can clone some more track fans.
The men’s 4 X 8 was one of the most buzzworthy events of the day as the University of Michigan (a time primarily of strong 1500 runners) took down Big 10 rival Penn State, which has fielded one of the strongest slates of 800 runners in recent memory. Michigan’s Trent McFarland anchored the relay and showboated at the finish line.
This nearly got the team a DQ for taunting, but they won on appeal. It also cost them a collegiate record, but McFarland told reporters (more accurately, 3 of us. It was a very rainy patch, and their entry to the mixed zone was delayed), he didn’t know what the collegiate record was and might have run through the line had he known. He joked, “That’s on the coach.” Still, the message board commenters (at LetsRun.com) are not letting him off easy. Perhaps, RunBlogRun will start a more benevolent message board.
Marcus O’Sullivan speaks about Villanova’s history…
Marcus Sullivan hung around the press section to watch the 4 X 8s and left a wise piece of wisdom. When I remarked that the 4 X 800 seemed a little watered down, he replied, “I always tell my runners, ‘there are no weak fields.”
I was slightly more interested in Penn State, which did the amazing task of qualifying a quartet of runners to the 16-man NCAA indoor field: St. Vincent and the Grenadines national record holder Handal Roban; the Japanese national indoor record holder Allon Clay (6th in the 2026 world championship); Japanese all-time indoor #2 Yukichi Ishi; and indoor and outdoor all-time Puerto Rico #5 Niko Schultz. Roban is red-shirting, so he was replaced here by Aussie Andrew Rignier. The team has 8 guys capable of running sub-1:47, so they have a deep bench.
I asked how they remain supportive when they’re all in the same event, and Nico Schultz answered, “by beating the guy next to you…The best way to earn their respect and discipline them is to beat them.”
In the Olympic Developmental 600 meters, Victoria Bossong took the title from Michaela Rose in 1:26.25. As someone who watched both runners compete at last year’s NCAA Indoor D1 Championships (Bossong at Harvard, Rose at LSU), it was a full-circle moment to see them dominate the pro circuit so early.
For the purpose of not driving audiences to a rival site for more comprehensive results (despite bravely interviewing Clemson’s winning 4 X 2 team, I’m not as adept at covering sprints), I should note that Ohio State won a ton of accolades today. They won the 4 X 1 and 4 X 4 on the men’s side and placed second.
As evening came and the temperature dropped, the audiences and press might have left before the last race were it not for the epic showdown between Bullis and the Jamaican teams that had dominated the 4 X 4 for the past 18 years. Under the era of teenage Olympian Quincy Wilson, the team has come increasingly close to taking the crown, but they finally broke through. Even sweeter, the Archbishop Carroll also broke through the Jamaican stronghold, taking 2nd place for the Americans.
The 47-degree temperature might have made the Jamaicans uncomfortable, but Bullis earned this win. They even had the lead before Wilson took the anchor league, proving they weren’t a one-pony team.
Even if you weren’t following the high school 4 X 4 landscape, it was an electric moment and a fitting way to end an enormous weekend.
