BATON ROUGE — While the LSU track and field teams play host to a pair of meets at the Carl Maddox Fieldhouse this weekend, four athletes have been invited to compete in the 101st Millrose Games on Friday at Madison Square Garden in New York.
The Millrose Games is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious indoor track and field invitational with a history dating back to 1908. Madison Square Garden has hosted to the event since 1914.
Senior Jessica Ohanaja will kick things off as she competes in the women’s college section of the 60-meter hurdles at 7:20 p.m. CT. Fellow senior Richard Thompson is set to line up in the Under-23 men’s 60-meter dash at 7:53 p.m., while seniors Kelly Baptiste and Juanita Broaddus follow at 7:58 p.m. in the women’s college section of the 60-meter dash.
“It’s a great honor for our kids to be invited to compete in a meet like the Millrose Games,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “There aren’t many track meets in this country that can match the history and tradition of Millrose. There will be 15,000 fans or more at the meet, and it’s going to be exciting for our kids to run in that kind of environment.”
Ohanaja and Baptiste are looking to defend their titles from a season ago as they were among six LSU athletes invited to compete in the 100th Millrose Games on Feb. 2 of last year. Thompson also competed at the centennial games and finished fourth in the men’s 60-meter dash.
The Millrose Games boasts a proud tradition that has attracted some of the greatest track and field athletes in the history of the sport, including Jesse Owens, Wilma Rudolph, Bob Seagren, Sergey Bubka, Mary Decker-Slaney, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Carl Lewis.
After playing host to the LSU Combined Events and the Bayou Bengal Invitational, the Tigers and Lady Tigers will return to New York next weekend as they battle a competitive field of more than 100 universities from across the country in the 2008 New Balance Collegiate Invitational at The Armory Track and Field Center beginning Feb. 8.