It had been nine years since a Florida Gator had last won the men’s 400-meter hurdles title at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Vance Nilsson made sure that drought didn’t reach a decade.
The freshman from Arizona lined up in lane nine on the track at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, on Friday. The outermost lane is typically an unsavory draw, as Nilsson had no athlete to gauge his race or effort off of. He was running blind, but it didn’t matter.
Nilsson built an early lead, pacing the field as they reached the final 100 meters. On the last hurdle, Texas senior Kody Blackwood appeared to be closing the gap on Nilsson, but he clipped the barrier and fell to the track. Nilsson didn’t navigate the hurdle perfectly either, but it was good enough to stay on his feet and etch his name in history.
Finishing in 48.06, Nilsson became the ninth-fastest performer in collegiate history and now sits second on the UF all-time list. After not even racing at the East Regional last season, the Nilsson that Florida fans expected when he came to Gainesville – the one that won the World Junior (under 20) title and set the high school 300-meter hurdles record in 2024 – had fully arrived.
Nilsson’s breakthrough win was the biggest highlight of an up-and-down meet for Florida’s men, and they ultimately finished 15th in the team race with 18 points.
The Gators first points of the weekend came courtesy of the right arm of Leikel Cabrera Gay. The Cuban junior finished sixth in the javelin final, recording a best mark of 76.07 meters.
After finishing as the runner-up at this meet last year, Cabrera Gay found himself on the brink of elimination as he took to the runway for his third attempt. With the season on the line, he improved by nearly seven meters to earn a place in the finals. With his sixth-place finish, Cabrera Gay became the first Florida athlete to claim consecutive first-team All-America honors in the men’s javelin since Stipe Zunic did so in 2011 and 2012.
Justin Braun also logged a sixth-place finish, as the junior ran 44.79 seconds in the 400-meter final. As he had been in so many races this season, Braun was lined up to the inside of Alabama junior Samuel Ogazi. Braun got out hard, almost making up the stagger on Ogazi in the first 100 meters. The pair were shoulder-to-shoulder entering the home straight, but Ogazi began to pull away as Braun slipped down in the order. Ogazi eventually won in 43.38 seconds, establishing a new collegiate record and becoming the fourth-fastest man in world history.
Later in the evening, Braun pulled up with an injury while running the second leg of the 4x400-meter relay team, meaning the Gators were unable to finish the race, ending a streak of 18 consecutive championships where Florida’s quartet garnered first-team All-America honors.
In a year that had already featured impressive national championship efforts during the cross country and indoor seasons, freshman Kelvin Cheruiyot saved his best for last. In the 10,000 meters, he finished seventh in 28:13.36, breaking his own program record.
“I didn’t expect that,” Cheruiyot said. “Coming into today’s race, I was like, ‘Let me go and run and see how it’s gonna be.’ Getting seventh place, I’m thankful for that.”
Cheruiyot was comfortably in a scoring position late in the race, but managed to run away from Alabama junior Dennis Kipruto over the final 800 meters to earn an extra point.
In the long jump, Temoso Masikane wasn’t able to find the same form that carried him to wins at the SEC Championships and the East Regional, but the South African freshman still leaped 7.73 meters to place 11th. He ends his first season with Florida having earned All-America honors indoors and out, as well as sweeping the SEC men’s freshman field athlete of the year awards.
Jarno van Daalen earned a pair of second-team All-America honors, finishing ninth in the shot put and 13th in the discus. In the shot put, his best effort of 19.16 meters finished a single agonizing centimeter away from landing on the scoring table, while his discus performance of 58.91 meters was impressive, yet got lost in the shuffle of the deepest competition in collegiate history.
Freshman Oussama Allaoui ended his rookie campaign as a Gator in the semifinals of the 1,500 meters, running 3:42.67 for 11th in his heat. Allaoui was moving up the field on the penultimate lap, aiming to position himself for a strong kick, but he got tripped up in traffic at the bell and simply wasn’t able to recover. After the indoor season, Allaoui said his goals for the outdoor season were to qualify for nationals and set a new personal best in the 1,500 meters, which he did April 17 with a 3:35.30 program record.
Continuing the trend of freshmen Gators on the national stage, Basel Abosina threw 65.75 meters to finish 18th in the hammer throw. Sophomore Jaden Lippett placed 21st in the triple jump with a leap of 15.43 meters.
The Gator women will bring the 2026 NCAA track and field season to a close inside Hayward June 13, the final day of the NCAA Championships.
Contact Paul Hof-Mahoney at phof-mahoney@alligator.org. Follow him on X at @phofmahoney.
Paul is a senior in his fourth semester on the track and field/cross country beat for The Alligator. In his free time, you can increasingly see him jogging around Gainesville or endlessly falling deeper down the rabbit hole that is track Twitter.
