Tuesday evening will see the UBC Thunderbirds host their Lower Mainland rivals, the SFU Clan, in the annual Achilles Cup dual meet at the Rashpal Dhillon Track & Field Oval.

"Apart from NAIAs, this is our most important competition of the year," UBC coach Marek Jedrzejek said. "It should be exciting for fans to see our teams going head-to-head. What is more exciting than two teams trying to outdo each other?"

Dual meets, and scored meets in general, are becoming increasingly rare in collegiate track and field, with many schools opting to chase qualifying times and marks rather than pitting themselves against their foes in the name of competition, and coming up winners or losers. At the Achilles Cup, many athletes will be competing in two or more events, trying to help score as many points as possible for their teams.

"We think it's valuable to maintain this rivalry, and compete as a team, like we do at NAIAs," Jedrzejek said.

HISTORY

In the meet's nine year history, the T-Birds have won the Cup three times (most recently in 2009), and have won the men's competition for the past four years straight.

The women's competition has been utterly dominated by the Clan, who have won every edition since the meet was split into separate men and women's divisions.

Last year SFU won the overall title 129-100 over UBC, with the UBC men outscoring SFU 60-53, but the SFU women winning by the larger margin of 76-40 to take the Cup.

MEET INFORMATION

Spanning over three hours, the meet starts at 2:00 PM with the women's 200 m, and concludes at around 7:00 PM with the 4x400 m relays. Presentation of the Achilles Cup will follow shortly after.

The scoring system is 5, 3, 2, 1, with points awarded to the top two athletes from UBC and SFU. Relays count 5 points for first, and 3 for second.

For more information and a complete schedule, visit the UBC Athletics website.

UP NEXT

The 'Birds will send a group to the Payton Jordan Invitational at Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA) next weekend, while others will be competing the following weekend at the WWU Twilight Meet, May 4, in Bellingham, WA.