Following a week off from competition, the University of Florida track and field teams are back in action this weekend, traveling to College Station, Texas, to compete in the Texas A&M Challenge presented by Mondo America.
The two-day meet begins at 7 p.m. ET Friday and 12 p.m. ET Saturday at Gilliam Indoor Stadium, the site of the 2011 NCAA Indoor Championships. The conference challenge format features four of the top teams from both the Big 12 Conference and the Southeastern Conference. Teams from the Big 12 include Kansas State, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Texas Tech, while the SEC teams include Florida, Georgia, Ole Miss and South Carolina. The meet, in which the Gators have participated for each of the last three seasons, will be scored by conference.
Live results for this weekend’s meet will be available at www.flashresults.com. Florida’s men enter the meet as the nation’s No. 2-ranked team in the latest USTFCCCA poll, while the women are unranked this week.
The meet features six ranked teams on the men’s side (No. 2 Florida, No. 3 Texas A&M, No. 4 Texas Tech, No. 14 Georgia, No. 20 Kansas State and No. 23 Oklahoma) and four ranked teams on the women’s side (No. 2 Texas A&M, No. 12 Oklahoma, No. 13 Texas Tech and No. 22 South Carolina).
“This will be a great competition,” Florida head coach Mike Holloway said. “You have eight programs with a lot of pride and a lot of tradition, and I expect some great performances. As far as the Gators go, our goal is just to get better, as it is every week. We’re going into a three-week period where we have this week, then we go to Virginia Tech and, the week after that, we go to the Tyson Invitational, so we’re going to get our legs under us, stick our nose in there and compete hard, and see where it leads us.”
Florida’s multi-event athletes will compete in their firs t competitions of the season, beginning Friday. Freshman Brittany Harrell (McComb, Miss.) will participate in her first collegiate pentathlon, while junior Gray Horn (Waynesfield, Ohio) will compete in his first heptathlon of the 2011 campaign.
Junior Christian Taylor (Fayetteville, Ga.), the sixth-best long jumper in the U.S. in 2010 according to Track and Field News, will jump in his first event of the 2011 season, participating in the men’s long jump on Saturday. Sophomore Omar Craddock (Killeen, Texas), the nation’s second-ranked triple jumper who has already qualified automatically for the NCAA Indoor Championships, will compete in the men’s triple jump for the second consecutive event. Junior transfer Will Claye (Phoenix, Ariz.), the 2009 NCAA Outdoor Champion in the men’s triple jump at Oklahoma, will participate in the men’s triple jump this weekend.
Senior thrower Kemal Mesic (Sarajevo, Bosnia), the NCAA’s fourth-ranked men’s shot putter this season, will look to improve his throw and qualify automatically for the upcoming NCAA Championships this weekend.
Gilliam Indoor Stadium is in only its third year of existence after opening in 2009. The facility served as host to the 2009 NCAA Indoor Championships and also will serve as the site of the 2011 NCAA Indoor Championships. It will mark the third time that Florida has competed in the facility after participating in the SEC/Big 12 Showdown and the NCAA Indoor Championships in 2009 and the Texas A&M Challenge in 2010.
Aside from the six-lane, 200-meter hydraulically banked competition track, the facility feature eight independent sprint lanes, two long and triple jump sand pits, four pole vault runways and two throwing rings. The stadium features seating for 4,100 fans.
