Bad weather strikes again

There will be one thing above all else that I’ll associate with the 99th BYU Invitational held over the weekend.

Rain.

On Saturday, the rain came down in sheets and buckets. (I looked everywhere, but I didn’t see any cats or dogs falling from the sky.) The grassy slopes around the track perimeter turned into mud hole in some places. At one point, I slipped and nearly fell on my backside in one such muddy spot.

My sneakers are still drying out from the soaking they received on Saturday.

A few schools who traveled to Provo to compete simply packed up and went home after a few events, citing worries about risking injuries to their athletes. Among those who left the meet Saturday morning were Morgan, Riverton and Taylorsville. Other schools that remained pulled some of their top athletes from events they would have normally ran in.

For the athletes who continued on, it felt like they had stumbled onto a new variety of water sports. Syracuse sprinter Tyrell Yardley summed it up perfectly when I interviewed him after his win in the 400 meters.

“We’re running through lakes,” Yardley said.

For me, the image I most associate with the havoc the rain played on everything is seeing the girl’s high jump competitors just starting their event in a nearly deserted stadium after having the start of the event delayed several hours. The high jumpers were set to move indoors but came back outdoors when the sun broke through in the afternoon. Then the rain started again just as they had dried out the high jump area enough to start the event. By the time it let up and they could jump, it was almost 6 p.m.

I was one of the few who stayed there to see it out, ironically because the girl’s team title competition rode on the outcome of that event.

The rainstorm led to multiple DNS marks for athletes in one event after another. After seeing so many exciting races and state records set at BYU when I went there in ’08, I couldn’t help feeling really disappointed at seeing bad weather negatively impact what is normally the best regular season track meet in the state.

I just hope we don’t see similar problems at the state meet in a couple of weeks.

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