Danny Olsen and Annika Bynum did not advance out of the first round of the national competition for track & field.
It turns out that the last events of the 2024-25 Marquette athletic calendar were contested this past week.
It didn’t have to be the last events, but more events required Marquette’s Danny Olsen and/or Annika Bynum to find their way through tough competition to advance to the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in a couple weeks. As you can tell, that did not happen.
Danny Olsen competed in the 400 meter dash at the NCAA West First Round back on Wednesday. He ran his race with a time of 46.48, not that far off his Big East championship and Marquette program record time of 46.21. However, this is a race with some of the best competitors in the country, so Olsen came in 6th in his heat. The top three in every heat advanced to the quarterfinals in College Station later in the week as well as the next six fastest times. That left Prairie View A&M’s Christion Derrick as the last at-large guy to advance with a time of 46.24, and thus Olsen missed the cutoff and saw his season come to an end. It’s not all a bummer, as Olsen came in with the 47th best time in a field of 48 racers, and he walked away with the 25th best time in the qualifying heats.
Annika Bynum did not quite have as much of an upside to her competition on the campus of Texas A&M on Saturday. She came into the West First Round with the 23rd best high jump mark of 1.80 meters during the outdoor season amongst the competitors. She was unable to pay off that ranking or advance as one of the top 12 competitors as she came up without a cleared jump on the opening height of 1.71 meters. Bynum was one of nine athletes at the West First Round who were unable to post a height at all in the women’s high jump, so at least she wasn’t the only one who struggled. It is worth noting that Bynum would have needed to break the Marquette program record in order to advance to Outdoor Championships in Oregon, as the top 12 competitors all cleared at least 1.81 meters and Bynum’s qualifying jump tied MU’s record.
And that’s it for sports in 2024-25 for Marquette. The next item listed on the calendar on GoMarquette.com is the August 7th women’s soccer exhibition match against Illinois. We’ll have to find something entertain us in the meantime, I guess……
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