Women’s Track and Field Sweeps Annual Illinois Athletic Awards for Third-Straight Season
June 25, 2026 | Women's Track & Field, Men's Track & Field
News
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The Fighting Illini women's track and field team won all three University of Illinois Annual Athletic Awards including Athlete, Newcomer and Freshman of the Year as voted on by Illinois head coaches and DIA executive staff for the third-consecutive season.
Long jumper Sophia Beckmon earned the title of Dike Eddleman Female Athlete of the year on the heels of becoming a national and Big Ten champion indoors and an All-American outdoors.
She's the program's first ever indoor field event national champion when she jumped 6.84m (22-5 1/4) to top the podium. A couple weeks before that she won the Big Ten indoor title on a mark of 6.77m (22-2 1/2) while also sprinting to a bronze medal in the 60m (7.31). She was the national leader in the long jump throughout the entire indoor season.
During her outdoor season she became an All-American for a second-consecutive season after taking fourth place in the long jump at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, 6.57m (21-6 3/4). At the Big Ten Outdoor Championships she placed fourth in both the 100m (11.11) and the long jump, 6.36m (20-10 1/2). Her 11.11 time is the second-fastest wind-aided time in Illinois history.
Beckmon is the sixth consecutive winner of the Eddleman Award from women's track & field, including the fourth of head coach Petros Kyprianou's four-year tenure. Beckmon is the 24th winner overall from track & field since the Illinois Female Athlete of the Year award was first handed out in 1977. Track & Field has the most selections among Illini women's sports programs.
Combined events athlete Meagan Humphries was named Illinois Newcomer of the Year after becoming an All-American and Big Ten Champion. She won the Big Ten title in the pentathlon at the indoor conference meet with the school's second-best score of 4,459 points recording personal bests in all five events. She's the programs first pentathlon Big Ten Champion (fifth individual in program history) in 24 years since Camee' Williams last won it back in 2002.
In her outdoor season she was the program's second woman ever to score 6,000 or more points in the heptathlon when she scored 6,008 to place fifth and earn All-America honors at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. At the Big Ten Outdoor Championships she walked away with a bronze medal in the heptathlon as well with a score of 5,893 points.
Humphries is the third consecutive member of Kyprianou's women's track & field program to be selected Illinois Newcomer of the Year, following Darja Sopova (2024) and Abria Smith (2025).
JaiCieonna Gero-Holt was tabbed Illinois Freshman of the Year to go along with her Big Ten Freshman of the Year honor. She's the program's first ever heptathlete to score 6,000 or more points with her school record 6,010 that she used to place third at the NCAA Outdoor Championships; the highest an Illinois heptathlete has ever finished. As part of her school-record breaking score, Gero-Holt also threw the program's seventh-furthest shot put, 14.98m (49-1 3/4), to propel her to the bronze medal.
A month prior to the national meet she was the Big Ten Heptathlon Champion at the Big Ten Outdoor Championships with 5,994 points. During the indoor season she was the team MVP as the team's leading scorer at the NCAA Indoor Championships with 12 points to help the squad take third.
She was the national runner-up in the pentathlon with the school record 4,466 points and the next day she placed fourth in the high jump to All-American in two separate events. The South Hill, Wash. native is the first freshman in program history to All-American in two separate individual events indoors and the first Illini in general to do it since Celena Modie-Milner in 1989 (55m and 200m). At the Big Ten Indoor Championships she earned silver in the pentathlon and finished fifth in the high jump.
Gero-Holt is the 12th Freshman of the Year for the Illinois women's track & field program and the third in as many seasons for Kyprianou, following Elizabeth Ndudi in 2024 and Melissa Wullschleger in 2025.
