Oct. 31, 2022 update
Check out our announcement about the 2023 Nike Indoor Nationals and returning to The Armory next March and go to our Nike Indoor Nationals home page hosted by RunnerSpace.com. Registration is open!
The Championship races are for those who have made the qualifying standards for those events. The Emerging Elite is for those who have not quite made those standards. The Emerging Elite Division is open to any high school athlete who has made the Emerging Elite standards, whether they be Freshman, Sophomores, Juniors or Seniors.
The idea is that, eventually, an Emerging Elite athlete will join the elite ranks, but has not yet attained that status. We have had this division in place for several years now in the outdoor version of this meet. A prime example is that of Kyle Merber. He won the Emerging Elite mile as a junior in 2007 in 4:15.95 (The championship mile was won in 4:03.33). The next year he was New York State 1600m Champion. And in his Sophomore year at Columbia U, he ran 3:58.62 for a mile! Similarly, Megan Goethals was the Emerging Elite mile champion in 2008 in 4:59.26. In 2009, she became the Foot Locker National Champion in cross-country.