CIF sticks with Clovis as state track and field host. Here’s how long

America’s preeminent meet for high school track and field competition will stay in Clovis through at least 2020.

On the day that Buchanan High’s Veterans Memorial Stadium opened as host of the two-day CIF State Championships for a ninth straight year, California Interscholastic Federation Executive Director Roger L. Blake announced that the meet will remain there under a new three-year agreement.

Official approval will come June 16 at a meeting of the CIF Executive Committee. That same panel also will vote that day to keep the CIF State Swimming & Diving Championships at the Clovis Olympic Swim Complex at Clovis West through 2020, a move announced on opening day of that sport’s finals last month.

The Fresno/Clovis area also hosts the CIF State Cross Country Championships at Woodward Park.

“CIF and our more than 800,000 student-athletes are grateful to the city of Clovis and its community for their commitment,” Blake says in a news release. “We are proud to continue to call Veterans Memorial Stadium the home of the CIF State Track and Field Championships.”

Veterans Memorial has served as host since 2009 of a meet that began as a boys-only competition in 1915 and has been continuous save for a 1942-45 hiatus during World War II, according to the CIF. Girls were included in 1970.

Previous hosts of recent vintage included Cerritos College in Norwalk and Hughes Stadium in Sacramento.

Annually, more than 800 athletes from throughout the state compete in 32 events. The top boys and girls teams overall and the top six finishers in each event receive awards.

After Friday’s qualifying heats and flights, gates open Saturday at 3:30 pm. ahead of field event finals starting at 4:30 p.m. and races beginning at 6 p.m.

This story was originally published June 2, 2017 at 4:32 PM with the headline "CIF sticks with Clovis as state track and field host. Here’s how long."