WACO, Texas – The Texas A&M men’s and women’s track & field teams wrapped up the Michael Johnson Invitational with strong performances, including Athing Mu breaking the all-time collegiate 800m outdoor record Saturday night at Clyde Hart Track & Field Stadium.
Mu, a freshman, broke the all-time collegiate 800m with a time of 1:57.73, shattering the previous record of 1:59.10. Her time also set an American junior record and is currently a world-leading mark. Mu’s performance met the Olympic qualifying standard.
It is the fourth collegiate record Mu has stamped her name on and the first during the outdoor season. The speedster holds collegiate indoor records in the 600m (1:25.80), 800m (1:58.40) and as a member of the 4x400m (3:26.27/50.27 split).
Fellow freshman, Brandon Miller won the men’s race to complete the Aggies sweep of the 800m. Miller, the 2021 SEC indoor champion, clocked a personal best time of 1:47.33 making him the eighth best performer in Texas A&M history. It is the second consecutive week Miller has won an 800m race while recording a personal best time.
The track stayed hot for the Maroon & White as hurdlers Dominique Mustin and Moitalel Mpoke each finished their respective races as the top collegians. Mpoke won the men’s 400m hurdles at a time of 50.53, while Mustin finished the women’s 400m hurdles at 58.49, .01 seconds off her personal best.
Multiple other Aggies impressed on the track, including Laila Owens finishing as the top collegian in the women’s 200m at 23.55. Summer Thorpe placed second in the women’s 100m hurdles with a season best time of 13.19, making her the 10th best performer in school history. Tierra Robinson-Jones finished as the second best collegian in the 400m at 53.76 and Devin Dixon finished as the third best collegian in the men’s 400m with a time of 47.23.
Rachel Bernardo ran a season best 3000m steeplechase time of 10:47.66 to place second.
Josh Brown highlighted the day in the field events for Texas A&M finishing third in the premier discus competition with a toss of 177-8 (54.16m). In the men’s open discus competition, Pablo Zolezzi bettered his personal best on two occasions finishing with his series best throw of 169-9 (51.74m).
Texas A&M Quotes
Head Coach Pat Henry
on the cold weather today:
“We about froze to death today. We still had some tremendous performances this evening. The day portion of the meet was horrible because of the wind and the cold, but it got a little better as we went throughout the day. It was a cold weathered meet. The weather got the best of some people today. Other than a couple of dings, we mostly came away unscathed.”
on Athing Mu’s performance:
“Athing [Mu] running 1:57.73 is one of the single greatest performances I’ve ever seen in collegiate track & field. I’ve never seen that dominant of a performance. She made second place look bad and second place ran two minutes flat, which is a fantastic time. She is in a league of her own right now.”
on the young freshman and 400m hurdlers performance:
“We’ve got some young ones coming along. From the high jump to intermediate hurdles to the 800m. Not just young people, but newcomers as well. Moitalel [Mpoke] won the race easily but he’s kind of stuck right now, he needs a great race to run faster. Even performances like a young man in Ricky Waer who improves almost a second in the 400m hurdles today. You start looking at the conference meet and all of a sudden he kind of moves to where he might be someone who can score.”
Collegiate record holder Athing Mu
on her time goal heading into the race:
“I didn’t really have a goal, I kind of self-consciously thought ‘I may as well just come out here and run a collegiate record at 1:59.’ You could say I was thinking 1:59, but I also just wanted to come out here to be competitive and just run my race.”
on her race plan:
“Going into the race I didn’t know how I was going to run the race. There were other fast runners in the race and I didn’t know if I wanted to go out there, pace it myself and go run a fast time. I just wanted to come out here and see where I’m at, this is my first 800m this outdoors. I was kind of skeptical of the first 200m. I didn’t know if I should go out or wait for someone else.”