NCAA West Preliminaries start Wednesday in Sacramento, plus changes at World Athletics...
It's the meet where twelfth is just as good as first.
The NCAA West Preliminary Championships start Wednesday at Sacramento's Hornet Stadium, hosted by Sacramento State University, where the objective is to survive and advance to the NCAA finals in two weeks in Austin, Texas.
Advancing to Sacramento required having one of the top 48 marks in the West Region during the regular season.
Over the next four days, the field of 48 in each event will winnow down to a group of twelve that move on to Austin.
Similarly, the same deal applies to the East Regional meet in Jacksonville, Florida, where the group of 48 will vie for one of the twelve spots to the nationals in Austin.
Washington has one of the meet's largest entries, with more than 40 combined entries.
The 10th-ranked Husky men's team features 19 individuals and 19 entries, and the 18th-ranked women have 20 individuals for 22 entries. Multi-eventers Ida Eikeng and Ollie Thorner automatically advance to NCAAs with their top-24 national marks. Eikeng will still compete in Sacramento in the javelin.
Washington is coming off its best conference meet in school history, with the men winning their first Pac-12 title ever, and the women finishing a program-best third. The men had a program-record seven individual titles and Andy Powell was named Pac-12 Men's Coach of the Year.
They go into the regionals with two NCAA number one seeds in Nastassja Campbell (Paul Merca photo) in the pole vault at 14-11 (4.55m) and Bryan Fay in the 5000 at 13:21.99.
Washington State enters 16 men and women, plus a women's 4 x 100 meter relay team. Distance runner Zach Stallings in the men's 1500 & 5000, and thrower Ronald Grueso Mosqquera in the men's shot and discus are the only Cougs doubling in the meet.
Gonzaga's group running in Sacramento includes Kristen Garcia in the 10K, Alicia Anderson in the 1500m, Cullen McEachern and Cooper Laird in the steeplechase, and James Mwaura in the 10K and 5K, with Yacine Guermali making his third career regionals appearance but first in the 1500m.
First-time qualifiers include Rosina Machu, who ran the fastest 5K and 3K races in program history in her first year of outdoor track competition; Caramia Mestler, who qualified in the 10K last season at Oregon before joining the Zags this year as a grad transfer; and Wil Smith, who has put down the second-fastest 5K (13:40.40) and second-fastest 10K (28:24.03) in program history this spring.
Eastern Washington's contingent of five includes Zach Klobutcher in the pole vault, Bobby Say in the triple jump and Ryan Rieckmann in the javelin. Eagle pole vault teammates Hally Ruff and Savannah Schultz qualified to compete on the women's side.
Notables advancing to the West Regionals with Washington ties include Taylor Roe of Lake Stevens & Oklahoma State in the 5000; Kenneth Rooks of BYU & Walla Walla in the steeplechase; Ashton Riner of BYU & Connell in the javelin; Oregon's outstanding triple jumper Lexi Ellis from University Place; and Jonas Price of Oklahoma State from Yakima in the steeplechase. In the East regional, Woodinville native Olivia Markezich of Notre Dame is the top seed in the women's steeplechase.
The scheduling format of the Regionals mirrors the national championship meet schedule, with the men and women alternating competition days. The men compete on Wednesday and Friday, while Thursday and Saturday are devoted to the women.
All the track action takes place in the evening, starting at 6 p.m. the first two days and 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Field events start as early as 10 a.m. with the hammers and continue throughout the day.
Every track event in Sacramento from the 100-meters up to the 1,500-meters will have two rounds; a first round that cuts the field from 48 to 24, and a quarterfinal that takes it from 24 down to the qualifying 12. The longer races: 3,000m steeplechase, 5,000-meters, and 10,000-meters—have just one round in Sacramento.
In the throws and horizontal jumps, all 48 athletes have three attempts each to decide the advancing 12. Vertical jumps will continue to raise the bar until a top-12 is decided, with no ties.
ESPN+ (requires subscription) will live stream all four days of the meet with each day having a unique link. Wednesday's competition stream link is available here.
The link to each school's pre-meet release is available by clicking on the name of each school:
WORLD ATHLETICS ANNOUNCES QUALIFYING CHANGES IN 1500, STEEPLE & 5000 STARTING IN BUDAPEST, AND INTRODUCTION OF 'SHORT TRACK'...
Over the last few days, World Athletics announced two significant changes involving qualifying in the 1500, steeplechase and 5000 which will go into effect at this summer's world championships in Budapest, as well as the concept of "short track" competitions.
Starting with this summer's world championships in Budapest, the idea of time qualifiers advancing to the next round will no longer exist.
In the 1500s for example, runners need to finish in the top 6 in their heat to advance to the next round, regardless of time. To cut the field to 24 semifinalists (from an initial field of 56), the old method was top 5 in each of the four heats (20 Qs), plus 4 time qualifiers (or small q), and from 24 to 12, it was top 5 plus two time qualifiers, which created a disadvantage to those who were drawn into earlier heats.
In this piece by Jonathan Gault of letsrun.com, he explained that this was long overdue, with a chart showing that the percentage of time qualifiers increased the later the heats, as those runners running later knew what they had to run to advance.
The other significant change announced by World Athletics is the introduction of 'short track' to replace the current term 'indoor' to describe events and performances that are set on a 200m track, traditionally staged indoors.
According to the World Athletics press release, the World Athletics Council is supporting the concept of 'short track' competition to allow more flexibility in the setting of 200m tracks, which may, in the future, be constructed outdoors or in temporary city locations, rather than in a traditional indoor arena. Performances set on outdoor or temporary 200m tracks could therefore be recognized as official results for the purpose of records and rankings.
WA president Sebastian Coe said, “This change is designed to remove an unintentional barrier to competition innovation, by offering organizers the chance to explore solutions and opportunities which the current rules may discourage. Under this new concept, the 200m short track will no longer be confined to the indoor environment, and a world of opportunities will open up for meeting organizers to stage official competition in whatever facilities they have available, either indoors or outdoors, using 200m or 400m tracks. This change will allow and actively encourage the possibility for 200m tracks to move to an outdoor environment and will provide a more affordable option to cities, especially where space is in short supply, while stimulating the growth of the sport through investment in new infrastructure.”
The World Athletics Council unanimously supports the move towards short track and the detailed rule changes required to initiate this innovation will be formally approved at its August meeting in Budapest.
The World Athletics release on qualifying in the middle distance races on place is available here, while their release on short track competitions are available here.
NOTE: World Athletics, LetsRun.com, the NCAA, and the sports information offices of the University of Washington, Washington State University, Eastern Washington, and Gonzaga contributed to this report.
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