Sunday, April 17, 2016

FAQ on State Qualifying

We talk a lot about State Qualifying. The State Meet is the big dance in high school track and field.  If you're new to high school track and field in Colorado (or maybe even if you're not), you might be wondering what a "qualifying meet" is and how athletes qualify for the State Meet. Here's a little FAQ.

Q: What is a State Qualifying meet? 
A:  In order to be a State Qualifying meet, meets must have electronic timing and use wind gauges. With the exception of our very first meet, the Conference Relays, all of our Varsity meets are State Qualifying meets, and both of our Frosh/Soph meets this year are also State Qualifying meets. JV meets are not State Qualifying meets.

Q:  How do athletes qualify for state?
A: The top 18 performers in each event in each division (1A - 5A) qualify for the Colorado State Meet in May.

Q: What division is HRHS in?
A: Highlands Ranch High School is a Colorado Division 5A school. Championships are contested separately for each division.

Q:  What's the story with wind gauges?
A:  Wind gauges are used for long jump, triple jump, 100 meters, 100/110 hurdles and 200 meters. Wind gauge readings of 2.0 meters per second or less are considered "wind legal" and may be used for state qualifying marks, records, and future seedings.The question is whether times and marks in these events are "wind-aided" so positive readings indicate a tailwind (not wind-legal at 2.1 m/s or higher) and negative readings indicate a headwind (a potential disadvantage but all negative readings are wind-legal).  For reference, 2.0 meters/second is about 4.5 miles per hour.

Q: My athlete has a better mark than the one listed for him or her on the MaxPreps and MileSplit leaderboards. Why is the better mark not listed?
A: For those events in which wind matters  (long jump, triple jump, 100m, 200m, 100/110m hurdles),  athletes need to achieve wind-legal marks (trailing wind readings of +2.0 or lower) to qualify for the state meet. Only wind-legal marks will be listed on leaderboards.

Q: MaxPreps vs. MileSplit?
Colorado Track XC (MileSplit) provides local coverage of meets (including photos and articles, some of which are available by subscription only), posts individual meet results, and maintains event leaderboards that can be searched and cut multiple ways (by grade, separated by division or not, etc.). MaxPreps maintains the official CHSSA leaderboards for state rankings. Links to leaderboards on MaxPreps are provided under Useful Links in the right sidebar on our homepage.