The second season of The Podium begins Saturday with Spokane Invitational...

The second season of indoor track & field meets at The Podium in Spokane begins Saturday as the highly touted venue hosts the second edition of the Spokane Invitational.

Action begins at 9am with three field events: the men's high jump, the women's weight throw, and the women's long jump, while the first running event commences at 10 am with the women's 5000, with the final event of the day, the men's 4 x 400 relay going off at 5:45 pm.

Seven of Washington's nine Division I & II schools will send athletes to the meet, with most of the emphasis on the shorter distances and the field events.

As it was last year, the meet will be regional in nature, though a few California schools will make the trip to the Inland Empire, plus the University of Hawaii.

Events to keep an eye on (based on entries posted on December 7th; as always, it's subject to change):

--Right off the bat, Washington All-American heptathlete Ida Eikeng (Paul Merca photo) goes in the long jump, one of two events she's entered on the day. Eikeng is also entered in the 60 hurdles, where she potentially can meet Pac-12 100 hurdles runner-up Micaela De Mello; 

--In the mens 5000, Gonzaga's Riley Moore, Wil Smith, and Kyle Radosevich, all of whom ran at the NCAA cross country championships, could take a shot at a sub-14 minute clocking, after both teammates Yacine Guemali and James Mwaura did so last week in Boston; 

--The mens long jump features Big Sky scorers Bobby Say of Eastern Washington and Zach Nunis of Idaho, with the Huskies' freshman Spanish decathlete Bruno Comín Pescador and NCAA competitor Ollie Thorner thrown in for good measure. Comín Pescador and Thorner are also entered in the 60 hurdles;

--The women's invitational pole vault has Husky freshman Sarah Ferguson, a 13-9.25 (4.20m) performer from Kentucky, facing Eastern Washington's Big Sky scorer Savannah Schultz, who will compete unattached;

--In the women's high jump, could Washington State's Kaylee Sowle and Suzy Pace push each other early and take a shot at six feet? Sowle has a personal best of 5-9.75 (1.77m), while Pace, a past NCAA qualifier, cleared 5-10 (1.78m) in 2021;

--The mens 400 will see Pac-12 400 hurdles scorers Jonathan Birchman and Matthew Wilkinson of the Dawgs go against teammate and Eastern Washington transfer Daniel Gaik; 

--NCAA and Olympic Trials 400 hurdles competitor Cass Elliott of Washington begins his annual indoor foray into the 800 meters; 

--Finally, world championships U20 finalist Anthony Smith of the Huskies, who made his collegiate debut with a win at this meet last year, is entered in the 200 meters.

Of the seven Washington schools entered in the meet, only Seattle Pacific and Gonzaga have a significant number of entries in races above a mile.

Seattle University will open their season after the new year, while Saint Martin's is opting to compete in two meets Friday and Saturday at the University of Wyoming and at the University of Colorado/Colorado Springs on Saturday.

Media partner RunnerSpace.com ($) will stream the Spokane Invitational. The link to live results and accepted entries is available here.

USA TRACK & FIELD PUTS 2023 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS IN ALBUQUERQUE & EUGENE...

Late last week, USA Track & Field announced that the USA Indoor Track & Field Championships will be contested February 16-18 at the Albuquerque Convention Center, and the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships will be held July 6-9 at Historic Hayward Field on the campus of the University of Oregon.

The federation also announced its indoor and outdoor Grand Prix series of World Athletics Gold Label events.

During its annual convention in Orlando last week, former Pullman resident Katie Nageotte (photo courtesy USATF) was named one of three winners of the federation's Wing Awards.

Nageotte was USATF's Field Event Wing Award winner for her performance at the world championships, where she went over 4.85m/15-11 on her first attempt in the pole vault to earn her first world outdoor championship to match her Olympic title from last year.

The other Wing Award winners were Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who won the world title on the track and set a world record in the 400 hurdles, and heptathlete Anna Hall, who was USATF's breakthrough performer of the world championships.

USATF's release on its championship meet schedule is available here, while the Wing Awards release is available here.

NOTE: The Podium and USA Track & Field contributed to this report.

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