By Carter Melrose
The Iowa track and field team finished up its final indoor meet before championship season in both Iowa City and South Bend, Indiana on Feb. 18.
Twelve athletes traveled to Indiana to the Alex Wilson Invitational, while the rest of the pack stayed home to race in the Iowa Open.
The decision to split up the team came from Iowa’s director of track and field, Joey Woody.
“We have a broken group, main reason for that is because our Big Ten Championship meet is on an oversized 300 meter flat track. So it just gives the guys exposure to race on a flat track again before the Big Ten meet,” Woody said.
According to Woody, this meet was a great way of tuning up before the impending indoor Big Ten Championships on Feb. 24-25 in Geneva, Ohio.
“We still have guys on the bubble for the Big Ten Championship meet. This gives them one more shot to show us what they got,” Woody said.
The Hawkeyes that went to the Alex Wilson Invitational, though small in numbers, had a pretty sizable impact on the meet, with as many as seven personal best being set in South Bend.
Notably, in the 800-meter race freshman Matt Manternach and sophomore Nolan Tuebel both set personal bests.
The steaming hot group in South Bend this weekend was the men’s 400-meter athletes, with four of them landing personal bests. Freshman Chris Thompson, sophomore Noah Larrison, senior Nick Jensen, and freshman Austin Lietz all managed to outdo their past performances.
Those 400-meter performances came only a week after Iowa set its 4×400-meter relay record by over a second, without none of Thompson, Larrison, Jensen, or Lietz running on that relay. That is proof once again that Iowa will be loaded in the middle distance events when it comes to championship season and outdoor season.
During the Iowa Open, the sprinters had a pretty substantial day as well, with both junior Heaven Chandler and sophomore Chris Douglas dashing to lifetime-best times in the 60-meter hurdles.
“I was really happy with how I ran today. I wanted to get back into the 8.4 range and I did which was very relieving heading into the pentathlon next weekend,” Chandler said.
Woody spoke after the meet about how far Chandler has come in her time as a Hawkeye.
“Heaven was a walk-on. I am really happy to see her have that big breakthrough. It was just a matter of time for her to do this,” Woody said in a release.