Spring sport spotlight: Duke track's Amina Maatoug's recent mile record is one of her many accolades

As winter sports are coming to a close, it’s time to look ahead to the spring season. Each week, Blue Zone will highlight an athlete who has performed especially well in their sport. This week, it’s Amina Maatoug:

While the spring is a time in which many sports shine, the Duke track and field team consistently puts up results and breaks records, with the women's team winning the ACC Outdoor Championship last spring and the Indoors in 2022. 

It’s still fairly early in the spring season for the team, but they have shown that they are only going to keep building off of their successes last season. So far this season, the men’s and women's teams have both been breaking records every weekend. Just last weekend at the Doc Hale Invitational, the Blue Devils had three players — Christian Johnson, Aimar Palma Simo and Zoe Waddell — break program records in the men’s and women's weight throw. 

However, this past weekend it was junior distance runner Amina Maatoug that broke records with her performance at the BU Valentine Invitational in Boston. The teams split up this past weekend, but still managed to break a total of six records across the board. 

Maatoug broke barriers both in Duke program history and onto NCAA leaderboards. 

The Netherlands native broke her own record on Saturday by three seconds, registering a stunning 4:29:22 in the women’s mile. Not only did this defeat her own personal record by three seconds, but registered as the fourth-fastest mile time in the NCAA and solidified her a coveted spot in the sub-4:30 mile club. Maatoug finished fourth in a 318 person field Saturday afternoon with her blistering time. 

Maatoug has been a strong spot for the women’s track team for all three of her seasons at Duke as just last season she finished 9th in the NCAA Cross Country Championships with a 19:29.9 finish in the 6K event. That ninth place finish at a national meet is the highest placement by a Blue Devil runner of all time, in addition to helping the team win multiple ACC titles. 

Duke track and field, especially on the women's side, has dominated the ACC for the past two seasons. If the stellar performances and milestones from runners such as Amina Maatoug continue, the Blue Devils are well on their way to a third stellar season.