Juniors Dominate Nationals

This past Saturday, June 26th in Des Moines, Iowa the Juniors on the TEAM were set to start off the weekend of races for Champions International. The day started off with heavy rain and thunder and lightning. The boys race which was first up for the morning was postponed by 30 minutes because there was still lightning striking too close to the start time.

Once the weather cleared up, the boys were up. The gun went off and Trevor and Tyler took off from the rest of the boys immediately. Both boys were pushing hard trying to fulfill their own personal goals. After a few kilometers we could tell that Trevor was struggling to get onto his goal pace. Even though he was in the lead by 200m's he was still hoping to break his own American Jr. Record. Trevor had been very tired from the training he has done over the last few weeks and not tapering for this race. He still finished a very strong 42:58. Tyler on the other hand continued his very strong season and walked a very tough race alone and managed to finish in a personal best time of 43:53, 5 seconds better than his time from earlier this year. With Trevor and Tyler finishing 1st and 2nd, they confirmed their spots on the USA team to compete at the World Junior Track and Field Championships in Moncton, Canada on July 23rd at 12:20pm.







Next up was the girls and as soon as they stepped on the line the sun came out and the humidity started to climb. Both girls were told to be very careful the first few laps since we knew the rest of the girls would shoot out of the starting line. Both girls followed the instructions and walked the first few laps together about 10-20m's back from the lead pack. Nicolette then moved up and caught up to the the lead pack. She stayed with the girls as Abby Dunn kept doing little spurts of sprints. Nicolette didnt mind Abby trying to make little moves and just stayed calm and kept thinking of just racing her own race. After each of Abby's little spurts, the girls always caught up to her. Nicolette decided to make a move and Abby went with her. As both girls moved away from the other's Abby still kept trying to make little moves but these moves didnt worry Nicolette. After awhile Abby could no longer make those little moves and Nicolette just got stronger. Nicolette made her final move which brought her to the finish line first in 56:25, winning the event by 33 seconds. At just 14 years old, Nicolette may be the youngest ever to win the 10km racewalk at Jr. Nationals. Following Nicolette was her TEAMmate Molly who pushed really hard throughout the race in really tough conditions. Even though she was struggling, she never gave up. Molly finished in 9th place in 59:54, a great time in these conditions.







Great job TEAM!