This Week's Happenings:
The Idaho men's and women's track and field teams will head back home this weekend for the 34th Annual Vandal Indoor on Friday and the Runner's Soul Open on Saturday. Both meets will take place at the Kibbie Dome.
The Vandals will look to improve on a pair of impressive opening meets at Washington State, where three Vandal athletes - juniors Mykael Bothum and KC Dahlgren and senior Matt Wauters - all hit NCAA provisional marks. Those three and the rest of the Idaho men's and women's teams will look to go even better while competing on their home track.
The Vandal Indoor always has some fireworks and this year will be no different. In addition to some of the top collegiate athletes in the area, the meet will also feature former Vandal Russ Winger, a 10-time NCAA qualifier and six-time All-American, who will compete in the shot put. Athletes from Central Washington, Eastern Washington, Concordia (Ore.), Washington State, Portland State, Warner Pacific, Whitworth, Lewis-Clark State and Puget Sound will join Idaho in the competition.
With one of the largest indoor track and field venues in the NCAA, the Vandal Indoor will hold an indoor discus competition - the only such competition in the NCAA indoor season - to provide a good preview of things to come outdoors.
Idaho athletes to keep an eye on this weekend include Lucas Pope and Mike Carpenter, who will chase Idaho's 24-year-old men's pole vault record of 16-8.25, Mykael Bothum, who will look to improve on her top-15 NCAA ranking and school record in the women's shot put, and Idaho's women's hurdle tandem of Christie Gordon and Heather Bergland, who currently sit 1-2 in the latest WAC rankings in the 60m hurdles.
Vandals Debut New Equipment:
The Idaho track and field program will be putting to use a number of brand new pieces of equipment at this weekend's meets. Following the 2008 indoor season, Vandal track and field added a brand new UCS pole vault pit with new standards, a UCS high jump pit, a full set of UCS hurdles and a top-of-the-line FinishLynx timing system.
The $60,000 improvements to Idaho's track and field program were made possible by donations of Bruce Sweeney and Gerry Hagedorn, who both competed for the Idaho track and field program during their time at the school.
"Bruce and Gerry both mean a lot to this program," Co-head coach Yogi Teevens said. "This program needed a lot of new equipment and they came together and got us all this new equipment and I can't even express how much that means to our kids and how much it means to us for recruiting. It's a special gift and we don't take it lightly."
