The big show is about to begin. Stars from across the country will arrive in Ames on Thursday for what promises to be one of the best track meets the NCAA Indoor schedule has to offer.

Every year, the ISU Classic serves up some of the nation’s best competition over the three-day event, with star athletes from top-notch programs from all reaches of the country. Last year, the Classic saw nearly 20 automatic and more than 50 provisional qualifiers for the NCAA Indoor Championships, and this season’s field doesn’t look to be any less star studded.

For Iowa State, a meet of this caliber is an opportunity to see what needs to be done in the coming weeks to prepare for the Big 12 Championships and beyond.

“There is going to be some stiff competition,” assistant coach John Dagata said. “We’ve got to have it together at this point.”

Meanwhile, for the Cyclone athletes, the meet gives them an opportunity to see where they stack up against the nation’s best.

“It’s great that we get a kind of a preview meet to see what we need to get ready for,” junior Jenna Caffrey said.

Caffrey, a 60-meter hurdle specialist, will face a unique challenge in the Classic as she will take on the pentathlon for the first time in her career. The multi-event competition showcases an athletes’ ability in the 55-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, long jump and 800-meter run.

“I’m getting excited. We’ve been putting all the odds and ends together in all the event areas,” Caffrey said. “I’m a perfectionist when it comes to track and what I do personally. There are days that things don’t go right and I get frustrated, but it’s not all going to come together at once.”

At the ISU Open in late January, Caffrey dipped her toe in pentathlon training with a ninth-place finish in the shot put competition with a throw of 12.63 meters.

Another star athlete for the Cyclone women will be trying something new at the Classic as well, but for Lisa Koll the opportunity isn’t nearly as exciting.Koll, who hasn’t run competitively since setting the school record in the 3,000-meter run at the ISU Open, will have to miss the Classic as she nurses a back injury that has kept her out of practice all week.

“It stinks, not running,” Koll said about missing the Classic for the first time in her college career. “I love running at home and I always race well on this track. But, things happen and you have to move on and deal with it.”

Even while she must watch the meet from the infield turf at the Lied Recreation Center, Koll knows that the meet is vitally important for her teammates’ successes later in the season.

“This is the point where we should start getting better,” Koll said. “Everything up until now has just kind of been preparation, this is where everything really starts.”

Koll did not work out Tuesday, but plans to resume preparations later in the week for the Big 12 Championships on Feb. 27 and 28.

After practice on Tuesday, the ISU coaches had a meeting to discuss the final days of preparation before one of the season’s biggest meets, and they came out more excited than ever.

“Coming out of the meeting, we’re all fired up,” said assistant coach Nate Wiens. “Our whole coaches’ meeting was about raising the bar.”

Raising the bar against a raised level of competition, however, can be very trying on a young team. Sometimes it may seem that the competition can add more pressure instead of increasing motivation.

“It should be motivation, but we’re going to find out,” Wiens said. “For about half of them it’s going to add more pressure, but the other half are saying ‘I’m going to crush everybody who is out there.’”

Wiens and his group of young sprinters are looking to keep up their strong performance on the season led by juniors Lashawn Wright and Monique Hawkins. Wright won the 200-meter dash at last week’s Husker Invitational, and finished eighth in the same event at the Classic last season.

“The girls are ready to go,” Wiens said. “We’ve got some girls that are good and ready for the challenge, and some that really need to step it up again.”

With events starting on Thursday with the pentathlon, the Cyclone coaching staff knows that each step in the preparation has been key in getting their athletes to the level they need to be at.

“We’re very close to some very big things,” Dagata said. “We want to come in and have a good showing and build some momentum going into the conference Championships.”