UNM and City of Albuquerque Awarded 2023 NCAA Track and Field Championships
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— The City of Albuquerque and The University of New Mexico have been selected to host the NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships in 2023 as announced by the NCAA on Wednesday. The City of Albuquerque will partner with UNM to serve as the host while the Albuquerque Convention Center will serve as the host site.
The event will take place in March 2023 with the exact dates still to be determined.
“These events could not happen without the amazing investment that Mayor Tim Keller and his administration have put into the infrastructure of the track facility,” UNM head track and field coach Joe Franklin stated. “We would especially like to thank Dave Simon and the City of Albuquerque Parks and Recreation Department for their unbelievable commitment to partnering with UNM and hosting these events.
“The University is greatly appreciative of this partnership and of the support by Angie Jepsen and Visit Albuquerque in making Albuquerque the continued premier location for indoor track events.”
“We are fired up to finish what we started before the pandemic led to the 2020 event being canceled, and are so excited the NCAA picked Albuquerque again to host,” Mayor Keller stated. “This event, and the many others like it, further cement the importance of investing in our city’s Sports Tourism industry.”
Albuquerque has hosted many top indoor track events, including the Mountain West Indoor Track and Field Championships for the past six years and 11 of the last 15 years, as well as the Toyota USATF Indoor Championships this past February and in 2018.
This is the third time that the City of Albuquerque and The University of New Mexico have been awarded the NCAA Division I Indoor Track Championships. Albuquerque was selected as the host city for 2014 and 2020. The 2020 championships were cancelled on March 12, the very day competition was scheduled to begin, due to the COVID-19 public health emergency.
Since the abrupt end of the 2020 indoor season, the City of Albuquerque has purchased a new Mondo indoor track to replace the existing track, which is 15 years old. The new track is currently under construction in Italy and is expected to be installed in December 2020. Proceeds from City Lodgers Tax Bonds funded the purchase of the $2.5 million new track.
The track will have the most up-to-date Mondo track technology and surfacing. Albuquerque’s existing track has proven to be fast and has seen many records set on it. The new track should be even faster, retaining Albuquerque’s position as a world-class location for indoor track, helping to maintain and build Albuquerque’s sports and recreation economy, and supporting a strong partnership with the UNM Track program. Typically, Albuquerque hosts about 10 meets during the indoor season.
The new Mondo track will consist of a six-lane, 200-meter oval with 42” wide lanes, with 12-degree banking and a 21-meter radius. In addition, the Mondo Fast Break Infield will include eight 60-meter spring lanes that are 48” wide.
The NCAA announced more than 450 selections of host sites from 2022-2023 to 2025-2026, which can be found here. Per the release, the NCAA received more than 3,000 bid submissions from NCAA member schools, conferences, sports commissions and cities vying to host predetermined rounds for 86 of the NCAA’s 90 championships. The sites were selected by the respective NCAA sports committees and approved by the divisional competition oversight and championships committees.