Men's Track and Field Opens Indoor Season On Saturday

Published by Cornell SID on December 1st, 2016

ITHACA, N.Y. — The men's track and field team will kick off the 2016-17 indoor season on Saturday when it makes the short trek to Ithaca College for the fourth annual Greg Page Relays.

The traditional season-opening meet was renamed three seasons ago in honor of Greg Page, who, as a graduate student at Cornell in the 1970s, founded the women's track and field program. 

The men will be up against a competitive field with several local squads, including Binghamton, Colgate, Syracuse, Ithaca, Cortland, and Ithaca.

The team will look to continue the success that it has had both in the Ivy League and on the national stage in recent years. In 2016, the team finished second at the Indoor Ivy League Championships and had eight athletes combine for a total of 10 All-Ivy honors. The Big Red also sent 20 individuals to the IC4A/ECAC Championships and two individuals to the NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships.
 
Senior Rudy Winkler, who represented the United States this summer in the hammer throw at the Rio Olympics and earned first team All-American status in the event by way of his second place finish at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships, returns to the throwing events for Cornell. Last indoor season, Winkler earned his second consecutive Ivy League title in the weight throw and aims to win the event at NCAA Indoor Championship.

Fellow senior Bobby Plummer will look to lead the jumps squad by building off of a junior year in which he qualified for the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships in the triple jump and classmate Austin Jamerson will look to continue his run of dominance in the heptathlon.

Cornell's first sub-four minute miler, senior James Gowans, seeks to better his ninth place performance at last year's NCAA Indoor Championships and senior Grant Sisserson returns and seeks to reestablish his dominance in the Heps pole vault competition.
 
Other members of the Big Red who will certainly will be big factors in the team's success this year are junior Myles Lazarou, a two-time Outdoor Heps champion in the high jump, senior Tobenna Attah, the runner-up in last year's indoor 400 meter at the Heps championship meet, and junior Alex Rodriguez, who took second in the long jump at last year's indoor Heps.

A full list of entries can be found here and an event schedule here.

Live stats will be posted here.