The Black Hills will host the 2021 SDHSAA State Track and Field Championships this week with Sturgis, Spearfish, and Rapid City splitting up the action.
Because the action is divided into three separate locations, South Dakota Public Broadcasting plans to televise this year’s event on three different channels – similar to volleyball and basketball this school year. SDPB1-TV will air the B’s, SDPB2-TV will show the A’s, and the AA event will be housed on SDPB3-TV.
In late March, the South Dakota High School Activities Association consulted with coaches and school administrators throughout the state, along with the site hosts in Rapid City, Spearfish, and Sturgis. Based on the information at that time, a decision was made to keep all three classes of high school track and field separated throughout the duration of the event.
Because of this, Rapid City will host ‘B,’ Spearfish will hold the ‘A’ events, and Sturgis will house the ‘AA’s. In previous years, all three classes were split up on day one of the event for a few finals, but mostly prelims, and then all three classes would come together at one location for day two, which consisted of all remaining running finals and field event finals.
Another modification that was made to this year’s track and field championships event is a significantly smaller number of prelim heats. The only running events that will have any sort of prelims are girls and boys 100m dash, girls 100m hurdles, and boys 110m hurdles. Because of this change, a large chunk of the running events will consist of three heats of finals.
Friday's action will begin at 3 pm MT with Saturday's events starting at 9 am MT. Click here for the complete schedule. Friday and Saturday's broadcasts will start 15 minutes before the first event is scheduled.
Along with all three classes being televised on SDPB-TV, they’ll also all stream live online at sdpb.org/track. Results, action shots, and award photos will also be posted online throughout the duration of the 2021 State Track and Field Championships.