Colorado Invite Moved To Saturday Only

BOULDER — The University of Colorado track and field program will welcome the largest field – nearly 1,400 entries – in the history of the Colorado Invitational this weekend when the Buffs host its home outdoor meet at Potts Field.

The meet was originally scheduled to run Friday and Saturday, but due to expected inclement weather all events will now take place on Saturday. Admission to Potts Field is $8 for adults or free for kids 12 and under.

"In my time it is the largest meet we've ever had," head coach Mark Wetmore said. "We are closing in on 1,400 entries, 20-something teams in one form or another and in just the men's 1500 alone there's 101 entries, so it will be a logistical challenge for sure, but we are on it."

The size of the meet is one thing, welcoming so many athletes to the University of Colorado is a great opportunity to put on well-run event and showcase CU. However, for the Buffaloes, it doesn't alter what the athletes are looking to produce this weekend.

"We will be watching for developmental steps in our progress towards the Pac-12 Championship and NCAA's," Wetmore said. "We are hoping if the weather is good for some NCAA preliminary round qualifying marks, no reason we wouldn't be able to get some of those out of this meet, and then learning about the newest of our people and youngest of our people. Better weather helps all of those, it looks like Saturday will be pretty good."

The field includes over 20 collegiate teams. With the adjusted schedule, both track and field events will now begin at 10 a.m. Saturday. The last scheduled event for the day is the women's 4x400 meter relay, slated to begin at 5:35 p.m.

HISTORICALLY
This is the 11th consecutive season the running of the Colorado Invitational has taken place, the 2006 meet was canceled due to inclement weather, but it goes back to 1997 when it was originally called the Colorado Collegiate. It replaced the Colorado Relay that ran from the 1920s into the 1990s.

As it was stated earlier, the field size this weekend at the Colorado Invitational is the largest in the 23-year tenure Wetmore has been the head coach of the CU track and field program.

"Before me, there was a meet we hosted called the Colorado Relays that had high school teams, it was three or four days long and probably bigger than this one," Wetmore said.

The Colorado Relays were an annual tradition since CU professor Walter B. Franklin and Denver Post sports editor C.L. "Poll" Parsons founded the event in 1925. It spent its first 42 years of existence in its Folsom Field birthplace. In 1967, the Relays were moved for the first time to the newly constructed Frank C. Potts Field that still hosts the track and field program to this day.

At the 1967 Relays, 15 meet records fell before a crowd of 3,500. CU won the meet on the strength of the performance of the mile racing team and the distance medley team in a close victory over Utah.

One highlight performance from the modern era of the Colorado Invitational was in 2005 when Liza Negriff set the CU women's triple jump record with her mark of 40-11.5. To this day, that mark stands as the Colorado record in the event and by more than five inches.

Colorado University Athletics

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