Cougars add three international athletes; face Idaho, Montana and Utah State Friday & Saturday...

Washington State University announced the addition of three Cougar newcomers that bring additional international experience to the Washington State roster.

Todd Wakefield (left/photo courtesy Athletics Australia) is an accomplished miler from Australia, where he was the Australian Schoolboys Cross Country Champion, the Australian Junior (U20) 1500m champion, ran a PR time of 3:44.84 for 1500m in Sydney, and finished sixth in the 1500 at the 13th IAAF World Junior Championships (July 2010) in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.

Wakefield's Athletics Australia bio sheet is available here.

Jovan Vukicevic is an outstanding high jumper from Serbia, where he won the Serbian National Championship in 2008, soaring to a PR and Olympic standard of 7-5 1/4 (2.27m), in 2008-09 he advanced to high jump final at World University Games, and last year was runner-up at both the European Champions Clubs Cup (ECCC) and at the Serbian National Championship.

His iaaf.org bio sheet is available here.

Ksenija Marovič is a pole vaulter from Serbia. Marovič was the runner-up at the Serbian National Championships the past three years, and has a PR of 12-9 (3.89m).

Here is a YouTube video of Marovic:


Wakefield will have freshman eligibility.

Washington State will host the Cougar Indoor Team Scoring meet Friday & Saturday at the WSU Indoor Track Facility, featuring teams from Idaho, Utah State, and Montana.

The two day meet includes a men's heptathlon and a women's pentathlon competition.

“Last weekend I felt we had some very good performances but we need more of them. We had a lot of freshmen in uniform for the first time and others had to get the cobwebs off and get in competitive mode. We are bringing more people into uniform for this competition and I think we will show tremendous improvement this week," said WSU head track coach Rick Sloan.

“I’ve told the team that we need to keep moving forward in our performance. The best mark achieved last year now needs to be the standard, the benchmark for the next season and moving forward from there. I anticipate that our performances will continue to get better.”

The full WSU release can be read here.

NOTE:  The WSU sports information office contributed to this report.