Cyclones Ready for NCAA Indoor Championships

AMES, Iowa – The indoor track and field season comes to a close this weekend with the Division I NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships, hosted by UAB at the Birmingham CrossPlex in Birmingham, Alabama. Iowa State has three entries in the meet, with Wesley Kiptoo running in the 5,000-meter run on Friday at 5:05 p.m. and the men's DMR toeing the line at 5:45 p.m. on Friday. Kiptoo is back in action on Saturday for the 3,000-meter run at 5 p.m.

All running events will be live streamed via ESPN3, here. Live results will be provided by Flash Results, here.

Men's 5,000m Run – Friday, 5:05 p.m.
Wesley Kiptoo is the defending champion in this event, going wire-to-wire in a championships-record time of 13:23.77. While both those facts, along with his No. 3 seed time of 13:14.74 he ran in Boston in December, put him among the favorites, the landscape of the event has changed dramatically across the fastest season in NCAA history.

All 16 of Friday's entrants have run 13:26 or faster this season, with last season's second-place finisher Adriaan Wildschutt of Florida State having the nation's best time at 13:09.30. There are plenty of other familiar competitors to Kiptoo in the field, with six of the 16 competitors also getting their qualifying mark in the same race Kiptoo did in December in Boston. Oklahoma State's Alex Maier, who Kiptoo dualed with in the 3,000m run at the Big 12 Championships two weeks ago is also in the field.

Men's Distance Medley Relay – Friday, 5:45 p.m.
The Cyclones sent six men down to Birmingham to be part of the DMR relay pool. All six were either part of the school-record squad that ran their qualifying time of 9:24.07 at Arkansas last month or were part of ISU's silver medal DMR team at the Big 12 Championships. Frank Hayes and Alex Lomong were part of both relay teams, Hayes running the 400m leg and Lomong doing the 800m. Jason Gomez and Nehemia Too were part of the school record team in Arkansas, while Daris Kipyego and Chad Johnson were on the Big 12 Championships squad.

Lomong and Too were both members of last season's ninth-place Second Team All-American DMR team at the NCAA Indoor Championships. Again, there are plenty of familiar foes for the Cyclones to take on. Washington, Oklahoma State, Alabama and Arkansas all ran their qualifying times in the same heat as the Cyclones at Arkansas, while the Cowboys and Texas dualed with ISU at the Big 12 Championships.

Men's 3,000m Run – Saturday, 5 p.m.
Kiptoo ran a time that made him eligible for this race during the 2021 indoor season, but he elected to scratch with last year's unique spring NCAA Cross Country Championships only days away. This year, Kiptoo is in the fold and is the No. 8 seed with his school-record 7:43.61 he ran at the Arkansas Qualifier last month.

Like the 5K, there are plenty of familiar names and faces. Arkansas' Amon Kemboi ran his qualifying time in the same race as Kiptoo at Arkansas, while Kiptoo was joined in the Millrose Games 3,000m by Stanford's Charles Hicks and Michigan State's Morgan Beadlescomb.

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Players Mentioned

Jason Gómez

Frank Hayes

Chad Johnson

Wesley Kiptoo

Alex Lomong

Nehemia Too

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