Waltz Misses Ncaa Indoor

Five athletes from Washington State University and three from University of Idaho will be in Indianapolis this weekend for the NCAA Indoor track and field championships.

WSU star Ian Waltz of Post Falls won’t be among them. And that, coach Rick Sloan believes, is not right.

“He deserved to be in the meet and it’s a shame that he’s not,” Sloan said.

The NCAA took the top 15 qualifiers in the shot put - bad news for Waltz, who finished tied for 16th.

“That upsets me - it’s almost like they’ve got a thing for him,” Sloan said. “What they do is they come down on the list to a particular number that they’re going to take in the field, and last year in the discus, they drew the line right above his name.

“This time, they came down and drew the line right above his name again (in the shot put).”

Waltz had thrown 18.43 meters, a number that appeared safe until a flurry of impressive marks boosted the cutoff to 18.49 toward the end of the indoor season.

“I’ll guarantee you this,” Sloan said, “when you get to the national championships, a lot of those 60-footers will be throwing 57 feet. I see it every single year.

“If we’d have been able to get Ian to the meet, then I think he would have for sure scored and been All-American.” , DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: AREA NCAA QUALIFIERS Local qualifiers for the NCAA championships with athlete’s name, school, event, qualifying mark and national ranking: Niels Kruller, Idaho, men’s long jump, 25-9-1/2, 4th Bernard Lagat, WSU, men’s mile, 4:00.17, 4th Tawanda Chiwira, Idaho, men’s 400, 46.55, 5th Francesca Green, WSU, women’s long jump, 20-8, 7th Chris Kwaramba, Idaho, men’s triple jump, 52-7-1/2, 11th Rasto Kiplangat, WSU, men’s 800, 1:48.97, 15th Also qualifying: WSU men’s distance medley relay team of Kiplangat, Lagat, Eric Kamau and Guillermo Macias