Kentucky Track & Field Set to Host Jim Green Invitational

LEXINGTON, Ky. — University of Kentucky track & field will host its first home meet of the 2021-22 season, the Jim Green Invitational, on Friday, January 14 and Saturday, January 15 in Nutter Field House. 

The meet begins at 1:30 p.m. on Friday with the women’s high jump. Friday’s last event is the men’s 200-meter dash at 7:25 p.m. Saturday’s events start at 11:00 a.m. with the women’s shot put and end at 4:45 with the men’s 4x400m relay. 

Kentucky and 14 other teams will be competing at the meet, including: 

Fans: What You Need to Know 

Admission is free. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, in order the create the safest possible meet experience, masks are required and only essential personnel will be permitted on the track and in the infield. Those permitted inside non-spectator areas include student-athletes, coaches and support personnel, officials and Kentucky staff as well as public safety officials.   

Fans may watch the meet from the bleachers and a roped-off area on the west side of Nutter Field House to watch the meet. 

Free parking for the indoor meets will be available in the Green Lot adjacent to Nutter Field House and Kroger Field on Friday and Saturday. 

Fans are urged to access parking lots from Cooper Drive or University Drive as College Way is seeing increased traffic due to community COVID testing. 

PT Timing will provide live results for all events. You can find these at pttiming.com. 

Concessions will also be available. 

Honoring the legendary Jim Green 

The meet recognizes University of Kentucky trailblazer Jim Green, the first African-American student-athlete at Kentucky and in the Southeastern Conference to win NCAA and SEC Championships. 
 
Green was one of the SEC’s pioneers of integration and was a 2007 inductee into the University of Kentucky Athletics Hall of Fame. He’s in fact an inductee into six Halls of Fame. 
  
Green was the first UK African-American to serve as co-captain on the track team and in December 1971 became the first African-American student-athlete to graduate from UK. 
  
Despite facing open hostility at many competitions, Green succeeded at the highest levels of collegiate sport. He was a three-time NCAA champion, winning the indoor 60-yard dash in 1968 and the 100-yard dash in both 1968 and 1971. 
  
He earned All-America honors six times and won eight SEC individual events, including the indoor 60-yard dash (1968, 1971), outdoor 100-yard dash (1968, 1970, 1971), and outdoor 220-yard dash (1968, 1970, 1971).  

Cardinal Classic 

The Wildcats had an impressive first meet of the season in December at the Cardinal Classic. 

Most notably, senior Abby Steiner broke Nebraska’s Merlene Ottey’s 40-year-old record of 35.83 in the 300m. Steiner also broke Sydney McLaughlin’s school record, and along with Dezerea Bryant, Kentucky now has three of the top-six indoor 300m performers in collegiate history, although the race is not run at the NCAA Championships. 

Freshman Luke Brown broke the school record in the triple jump with a jump of 51’8.25″/15.75m, breaking 2004 Olympic long jump gold medalist Dwight Philips’ 24-year-old school record. 

The Wildcats won 22 of 36 events, broke three school records and notched a few results on the UK all-time top-10 performers’ list.  

Tokyo Olympian Dwight St. Hillaire improved his own 300m school record with a winning time of 32.70 seconds, the fourth-fastest time in collegiate history. 

Building Off Another Strong Season 

Last year’s indoor track & field season was a historic one for the Wildcats. 

Overall, the women finished 13th at NCAA Championships and fifth at SEC Championships in the 2021 indoor season. The men placed 14th at NCAAs and seventh at SECs. 

The Wildcats earned 17 All-America awards for the indoor season. 

Abby Steiner won the NCAA 200 title, tying the collegiate record of 22.38. Her run was the second-fastest in United States indoor history and fifth-fastest in indoor world history in an event rarely run indoors outside North America. 

Steiner also won gold in the same event at 2021 SEC indoor championships, finishing with a time of 22.50. 

Another impressive performance from 2021 NCAA indoor championships was that of the men’s 4x400m relay, earning a silver medal. The team of Jacob Smith, Lance Lang, Kennedy Lightner and Dwight St. Hillaire finished with a school-record time of 3:03.61. 

The women’s 4x400m relay of Masai Russell, Steiner, Megan Moss and Dajour Miles also performed well, finishing fifth overall at NCAAs. 

Alexis Holmes won the SEC 400m in 2020, before missing much of the 2021 season with injury. 

Lang finished sixth in the 200m with a time of 20.88 and St. Hillaire placed eighth in the 400m (45.89). 

Lang ran for a personal best in the 200m at SEC Championships, finishing third with a time of 20.79. 

Annika Williams also had a strong performance, finishing sixth in the pentathlon with 4,173 points. 

At 2021 SEC indoor championships, senior Matt Peare won the pole vault, becoming the first Wildcat to win back-to-back SEC titles in the pole vault. He vaulted 17’9.75″/5.43m for the gold. 

Both the men’s and women’s 4x400m relay teams earned silver at SEC Championships, finishing in 3:04.68 and 3:28.82, respectively. The teams were comprised of the same athletes that competed in 4x400m relays at NCAA Championships. The women’s relay set a new UK school record. 

The 2021 Outdoor Season 

Kentucky finished strong in the outdoor season as well. The men’s team finished fifth at NCAA outdoor championships, highlighted by a pole vault silver medal from Keaton Daniel (18’2.5″/5.55m), fifth place finish in the shotput (65’0.5″/19.82m) by Josh Sobota and Dwight St. Hillaire running for fifth in the 400m (45.20). 

Daniel’s silver medal was the first men’s NCAA pole vault medal in UK history. 

The women’s team finished 21st at NCAA outdoor championships, highlighted by Masai Russell’s fourth-place finish in the 400m hurdles (56.18) and sixth-place result in the 100m hurdles (12.97). The women’s 4x400m relay finished eighth. 

It was the seventh-straight year the Kentucky women finished in the top-25 at NCAAs. 

The Wildcats earned 26 All-America honors for the outdoor season. 

Kentucky track & field also boasts two current members on the team who ran in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. St. Hillaire ran the 400m and 4x400m relay for Trinidad & Tobago while Moss ran the 4x400m relay for the Bahamas. 

The Wildcats found immense success in the 2020-21 season and look to continue that success in the 2021-22 season. 

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