Group of five with Washington ties run at Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku Wednesday...

A group of five athletes with Washington ties are competing in Turku, Finland at Wednesday's Paavo Nurmi Games, which is a World Athletics Continental Gold Tour meet.

For those competing at the Paavo Nurmi Games, it's a great early season meet to stack up world ranking points, and create some momentum going into the meat of the professional season.

Washington alum Aaron Ahl (Paul Merca photo), who ran 8:24.08 in his steeple season opener at the LA Track Fest at UCLA on May 23rd, is entered in the event, where he'll face Ethiopia's Abraham Sime, fellow Canadian Jean-Simon Desgagnés, and USA world championships team member Daniel Michalski.

Brian Fay and Kieran Lumb are both entered in the 5000 meters. The top seeds in the race are former Oregon standout James West of Great Britain, and Filip Ingebrigtsen of Norway.

Seattle resident Sam Prakel and Washington alum Amina Maatoug are in the men's and women's 1500 meters, respectively.

Prakel runs against a field that includes Håkon Moe Berg of Norway and Ruben Verheyden of Belgium.

Maatoug, who paced the 1500 at the Rabat Diamond League meet on Sunday, goes against a field led by Canadian sub-4 1500 runner Gabriela DeBues-Stafford, and American Dani Jones.

The start list is available here, while the time schedule is available here.

The link to live results is available here.

Flotrack ($) will live stream the meet starting at 9 am Pacific time.

NOTE: World Athletics and the Paavo Nurmi Games contributed to this report.

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