BATON ROUGE — The third-ranked LSU men’s track and field team and sixth-ranked Lady Tigers travel to New York City this weekend for the “Meet of Champions” Armory Invitational on Friday and Saturday.
The meet will be held at the famous Armory Track and Field Center, the same venue that will host the USA Indoor Track and Field Championships in March.
On hand will be such top-level teams as the last two NCAA Outdoor men’s champions, No.1 Tennessee and Stanford, as well as perennial champion Arkansas. The women’s competition brings such teams as No. 2 South Carolina and No. 14 Arkansas.
“It’s a great competition and it’s a fantastic venue for us to be competing at,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “This is one of the great facilities in this sport and when you factor in the teams that they are bringing to this competition, I think you will see some very fast times produced this weekend.”
A majority of the action will be contested on Saturday, but several athletes will get underway on Friday. Heats in the 60, 200 and 400-meter dashes will be contested, as will heats of the 60-meter hurdles. Finals for all events will be held on Saturday.
“This is a banked oval at the Armory and a great chance for us to get some people qualified for the NCAA Championships,” added Henry. “We think we can get a lot done here this weekend. It’s an important competition for us, it’s our last major test before we go to the SEC Championships in two weeks.”
In the field, the triple jump and long jump finals will be contested on Friday afternoon, giving LSU the opportunity to showcase its stable of horizontal jumpers led by 2000 Olympian and NCAA triple jump champion Walter Davis.
Following the Armory Invitational, both squads return home Friday for the LSU Twilight, a light competition that will give LSU one final chance to prepare for the SEC Indoor Championships, to be held from Feb. 22-24 in Fayetteville, Ark.