WSU Invitational opens 3-day run Thursday as a trio of US Olympians are entered...
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| 2016 Olympic long jump champ Jeff Henderson (Paul Merca photo) |
Thursday's competition will solely be around the men's heptathlon and the women's pentathlon, which gets underway at noon with the heptathlon 60, and the pentathlon 60 hurdles at 12:30.
The heptathlon features Pac-12 competitors Cody Teevens of Washington State, and Nick Bianco of Colorado. Additionally, Grand Canyon's Aidan Diggs, the reigning WAC decathlon champ is in the field.
The 20-woman pentathlon field includes Pac-12 multi-event competitors Avery McMullen and Jada Green of Colorado, along with Peyton Teevens of Washington State and Anneke Moersdorf of Oregon State.
Margaret Nelson of Eastern Washington, who won the Candy Cane pentathlon in early December, is in the competition along with Big Sky heptathlon runner-up Jansen Ziola of Montana.
With the exception of Washington and Seattle Pacific, Central Washington, Saint Martin's, Gonzaga, Seattle University, Eastern Washington, Western Washington and host WSU will have athletes in action in Friday's WSU Open meet, which features numerous teams and individuals from the Northwest and the West Coast who did not get into the invitational section.
For the Division II schools, the WSU Open is a big competition as the coaching staffs of those schools start narrowing their rosters with an eye towards the Great Northwest Athletic Conference championship meet back at The Podium on February 21st-22nd.
Saturday's Invitational section consists of all the Washington schools except for Seattle Pacific, as the Huskies are sending their sprint group to Spokane. The Huskies will be led by Aaliyah Wilson, Anthony Smith, and Cass Elliott, who all won in Spokane at the grand opening of The Podium in December.
Henderson, who finished sixth at last year's Olympic Trials, is entered in both the long jump and the 60.
Kunz and Bougard are both entered in the high jump, 400 and 60 hurdles. Kunz is already guaranteed a spot on Team USA for the world indoor championships (which is invitation only by World Athletics) in Belgrade next month, on the basis of holding the number 2 score in the heptathlon in 2021, when she scored 6703 to win the Olympic Trials.
Kunz (Paul Merca photo) was sixth in the Olympic heptathlon in Tokyo, scoring 6420 points.
Bougard, who was third at the Olympic Trials with 6667 points, and ninth at the Olympics with 6379, competed at last week's UW Invitational in the 60 hurdles, but pulled up after the first hurdle.
Media partner RunnerSpace.com ($) will stream the meet each day.
The start lists for the WSU Invitational is available here, while the start lists for the WSU Open are available here.
NOTE: World Athletics, Spokane Sports, and the sports information office of Washington State University contributed to this report.
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