Busy weekend of track & field action ahead for Washington athletes...

Apologies for not posting since Saturday's UW Invitational--like the rest of Seattle, we are digging our way out of the greatest sports weekend and party in this city's history, not to mention a gigantic case of the Blue Flu that has greatly diminished productivity, and caused numerous absences among the city's workers and school kids.

To put it bluntly, Seattle's gone nuts over its Seahawks, the newly crowned Super Bowl champions, led by the brash Richard Sherman (left/photo by Paul Merca), the former Stanford long and triple jumper, who is one of the best cornerbacks in the game.

Disclosure:  In addition to this blog, I also cover the Seattle Seahawks and the NFL on a part-time basis, working primarily with the television rights-holders.

So, here's a recap of what's happened since, and what to look forward to as we head to another busy weekend in track & field:

Alexa Efraimson's efforts at the UW Invitational garnered her the USA Track & Field athlete of the week honors, after the Camas HS junior's scintillating 9:00.16, broke Mary Cain's all-time high school best of 9:02.10 set last year at the Dempsey.


Washington State and Eastern Washington will travel to Moscow for a pair of meets Friday and Saturday at the Kibbie Dome for the Vandal Indoor and Open meets.  The Eagles have 18 men & 18 women competing Friday night, while the Cougars enter a squad of 34 men & 23 women Friday night.

Both teams will run athletes in the Vandal Open meet who did not get in Friday's meet.


The Washington Huskies will send a group of athletes to Albuquerque for this weekend's New Mexico Collegiate Classic, primarily in the sprints and jumps.

Speaking of the Huskies, the Washington women's team dropped one spot to #19 in the USTFCCCA national team computer rankings.  In Division II, Western Washington's men moved up three to #22 in the rankings released earlier this week.

The rankings can be accessed via the USTFCCCA home page.

On Saturday, the Brooks Beasts travel to Boston for the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, where the team of Nick Symmonds, Cas Loxsom, Matt Scherer and Mark Wieczorek will go for the world best mark in the 4 x 800m relay of 7:13.94 set in this meet in 2000.

Other teams will include Loxsom’s World Juniors teammate (and bronze medallist in Moncton) Robby Andrews, leading a team from the New York/New Jersey Track Club, and an “all-star” team led by world and Olympic finalist Duane Solomon.  

The IAAF preview of the meet is available here.  The New Balance Indoor Grand Prix will be televised live by NBCSN (Comcast 626 in Seattle) starting at 1:30pm (4:30p Eastern time).

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