Photo Courtesy of Idaho State Athletics
Trevor Delaney
Sports Editor
Two of the biggest events in the Intermountain West indoor track and field scene have been canceled for the 2021 season, with both the Big Sky Men’s & Women’s Indoor Track & Field Championships and the 43rd annual Simplot Games being postponed until 2022 due to pandemic concerns. February is usually a busy month in the world of indoor track and field, with the Big Sky Championships being an essential component of collegiate track and field since the first indoor conference championship meet was held in 1979. The Simplot Games have also been a staple of high school indoor track and field for just as long, being held each year at the Holt Arena since they started in 1979. Without these two cornerstone competitions, athletes can look forward to what lies ahead in 2022.
The Big Sky Indoor Track and Field Championships this year was scheduled to be held at the Worthington Arena at Montana State in Bozeman, Montana on Feb. 20-21, 2021 before the unavoidable cancelation of the event in order to safeguard participants. The Big Sky Conference has only canceled the indoor track and field championships for this year, leaving the championships for other sports on the schedule. While social distancing can perhaps be accomplished with other sports, the burden imposed by the nature of indoor track and field makes the logistical implementation of social distancing methods much more difficult to accomplish. These capacity concerns and the local health restrictions in Bozeman ultimately led the Big Sky President’s Council to call off the 2021 Championship. Idaho State University is scheduled to host the upcoming 2022 Big Sky Indoor Track and Field Championship on May 11-14, 2022 at the Holt Arena.
This year’s Simplot Games was scheduled for Feb. 17-19, 2021, before the final announcement was made back in November that the event would be postponed for a year. The new date for the 43rd Simplot Games is Feb. 17-19, 2022, at the Holt Arena. The Simplot Games is the chief event when it comes to indoor track and field at the high school level in the U.S., attracting over 2000 athletes from across nineteen states, as well as athletes from as far as Canada and Australia. The obligation to keep all these high school athletes safe from potential health risks prompted the organizers of the Simplot Games to move the event up until next year. This will be the first year in 42 years that the Simplot Games have not been held, leaving a gap for many ambitious young athletes who have come to expect the Simplot Games each year.
