It might be a light weekend of indoor track, but don't let the next few days fool you...

While the next few days appears to be light, there will be lots of upcoming meets for the state's nine Division I and II schools, plus the focus will be squarely on the state of Washington next weekend as The Podium hosts the USATF Indoor Track & Field Championships on Saturday-Sunday February 26-27, and the Dempsey hosts the Pac-12 Invitational on February 25-26.

While the other three Washington Division I schools are taking the weekend off, both Washington and Washington State are sending a small group to the Arkansas Qualifier on Friday at the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, hosted by the University of Arkansas.

The Huskies are sending six athletes: Cass Elliott (Paul Merca photo), Brian Fay, Isaac Green, Luke Houser, Anthony Smith, and Joe Waskom. Friday's men's distance medley relay is slated for a 1:50 p.m. Pacific start. Along with the DMR entry, Smith is entered in the 200-meters, Waskom is entered in the mile, and Green is entered in the 3,000-meters.

Washington State is sending to Arkansas 60m hurdlers Micaela De Mello, Sam Brixey, and Nick Johnson; miler Zach Stallings; 800 meter runner Amir Ado; high jumper Mitch Jacobson, and pole vaulter Jacob Englar.

Fans can watch all the action from Arkansas Qualifier live on ESPN Plus. Fans will need an ESPN Plus subscription to watch the meet.

The start list for the Arkansas Qualifier is available here.

Meanwhile, the Washington women are headed to the JDL DMR Invitational in Winston-Salem, N.C. with the relay slated for Friday and individual events on Saturday, Feb. 19.

The women currently rank fourth nationally with their time of 11:00.83 from the UW Invitational, but Director of Track & Field Maurica Powell does not want to leave anything to chance, and will give the women a chance to run even faster on Friday.

Traveling for the women are Anna Gibson, Madi Heisterman, Allie Schadler, and Carley Thomas. The DMR is scheduled to run at 4:20 p.m. Pacific time on Friday. On Saturday, Thomas, Gibson and Heisterman are all entered in the 800-meters while Schadler is entered in the mile.

Media partner RunnerSpace.com ($) will stream the JDL DMR Invitational Friday and Saturday. 

The start lists and live results page for the JDL DMR Invitational is available here.

Finally, while there are no Washington schools involved in the meet, The Podium is hosting the annual Mountain Pacific Sports Federation indoor track & field championships in Spokane Friday and Saturday.

With the decision by the Pac-12 schools to break away from the MPSF and compete in its own invitational next week, the MPSF meet will have teams from the Big West and the West Coast Conference, with BYU the heavy favorite to win the team title

The meet gets underway at 10:30 am Friday and 10 am Saturday.

After the MPSF,  The Podium will host the Great Northwest Athletic Conference championship on Monday and Tuesday, then get the facility ready for the USATF Indoor Track & Field Championships on the 26th & 27th.

Flotrack ($) will stream the meet live both days.

The start list and live results page for the MPSF championships is available here.

Finally, former Pullman resident and Olympic gold medalist Katie Nageotte finished third in the pole vault at the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais on Thursday in Lieven, France.

Jumping off a short approach, Nageotte cleared a season best of 15-9 (4.80m), as 2019 world outdoor champion Anzhelika Sidorova won with a world leading mark of 15-11 (4.85m).

The highlight of the meet was a world record in the men's 1500 set by Norway's Olympic champ Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who ran 3:30.60.

World Athletics' recap of the meet, and link to results is available here.

NOTE: World Athletics, Spokane Sports, the MPSF, JDL Fast Track, and the sports information offices of the University of Washington, Washington State University, and the University of Arkansas contributed to this report.

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