Kelati to run at Millrose on Saturday
Busy weekend slate has Lobos here, NY, Seattle
It will be a busy weekend for the University of New Mexico track and field team, which will have its athletes scattered from one coast to the other.
Weini Kelati will run in the 112th Millrose Games on Saturday in New York, the Lobos will have seven entries at the Husky Classic in Seattle and meanwhile they will host the Don Kirby Collegiate Elite Invitational at the Albuquerque Convention Center.
The latter, which is today and Saturday, is the final tuneup for the Mountain West Conference indoor championships here Feb. 21-23.
The Don Kirby meet includes teams from Oregon, UCLA, Stanford, Oregon State, Utah and Washington State of the Pac-12. Mountain West teams Colorado State, UNLV, Utah State, Fresno State, and San Diego State also are entered.
In addition, other schools to be represented include New Mexico State, Eastern New Mexico, Oklahoma State, Northern Arizona,
Cal State Northridge, UTEP, Southern Utah, Grand Canyon, Stephen F. Austin, Northern Colorado, Tulane, Long Beach State, San Francisco, Campbell, UC Davis, UC Riverside and UC Irvine.
Kelati will run the Women’s Fred Lebow Invitational 3,000 meters for the first time this season at 2:36 p.m. Saturday on NBC. She has the second-fastest time of the NCAA season behind UNM teammate Ednah Kurgat in the 5,000 meters (15 minutes, 15.24 seconds that she ran at the Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener in December) and third in the mile among NCAA runners with 4:33.34 at the New Mexico Team Invitational two weeks ago, which also broke the school record.
Kurgat, meanwhile, will be in Seattle, competing with Kelati and others for the fastest 3,000 time of the season. The standard is 9:01.72 by Elly Henes of North Carolina State on Feb. 1.
Lobos Kurgat, Adva Cohen and Hannah Nuttall are scheduled to run in the 3,000-meter race. Emily Martin will run the 5,000, and Kieran Casey, Cohen and Nuttall will run the mile.
Kurgat is running for just the second time this season. In her first race, she broke her school and Mountain West indoor record in the 5,000, registering the third-fastest time in NCAA history and best this year. On Wednesday, she was one of 10 women named to the midindoor season Bowerman Watch List.
In the Don Kirby meet, several Lobos competing coming off season bests from last weekend, including freshman triple jumper Aidan Quinn, who has won the event the last two meets.
Ada’ora Chigbo sits 16th in the NCAA and leads the Mountain West in the high jump after last Saturday’s 5-10½ clearance.
NMSU’s Taniya Mitchell will seek to follow up her school record weight throw of 61-7.
Events begin at 3 p.m. today with the women’s long jump, followed by the men’s pole vault and women’s weight throw at 4 p.m. Track events start at 5 p.m. with the men’s unseeded 400-meter dash. There will be 10 field events and eight track events on the first day.
Saturday’s events start at 9:30 a.m. with the women’s shot put and the women’s pole vault and women’s 60-meter hurdles at 10 a.m.
The meet will be streamed on FloTrack. Tickets at the door will be $5 per day, and UNM students can get into the meet for free with their student ID. New Mexico Mutual Pride Pass holders can get in at no extra charge.