One of the longest running high school and collegiate track and field meets, the Drake Relays have announced the participants for this year's event and three William Jewell student-athletes are amongst those qualifiers. Senior
Margaret Perko, along with juniors
Blake Alexander, and
Alec Whiteside will take part in the six day event in Des Moines, Iowa.
The Drake Relays began in 1910 and by 1922 was drawing nearly 10,000 fans annually. In 1961, women were added beginning with future Olympian Wilma Rudolph.
The Relays have hosted hundreds of Olympic athletes including Frank Shorter, Carl Lewis, and Jesse Owens. The 2012 Olympic Games included 113 athletes that had at one time competed in the Drake Relays.
The 2016 event will include high school, college, and university athletes as well as the Rio Olympic Games Preview where nearly 30 athletes, in 12 events, will begin their journey towards the 2016 Games.
Perko has been selected to take part in the women's heptathlon which will begin on Wednesday, April 27 at 12:30 p.m. and conclude the following day with the second day's events beginning at 10:30 a.m. Perko is currently ranked eleventh nationally (DII) in the hepatathlon after shattering the school record with 4,867 points at the MIAA-NSIC Showdown.
Alexander will participate in two events, the 110 and 400 meter hurdles. He enters the meet ranked third nationally (DII) in the 110 hurdles and will begin with the preliminaries on Friday, April 29 at 9:45 a.m. followed by the finals on Saturday at 2:44 p.m. The finals for the 400 hurdles will take place on Saturday at 1:13 p.m.
The final Cardinal selected is Whiteside who will compete in the men's hammer throw on Saturday, April 30 at 12:00 p.m. Whiteside hit a provisional qualifying mark and is ranked 25th nationally with a 56.17 throw on March 25 at the PSU/Wendy's Invitational.
The Drake Relays will begin with a opening parade on Saturday, April 23 followed by a mascot contest for Drake University. The first event is the Grand Blue Mile at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, which is a mile run through downtown Des Moines.
