Valerie Schmidt, who competed in track and field for Prairie High School, won the heptathlon for ages 17-18 at the USA Track & Field National Junior Olympic Championships, held July 23-24 at Greensboro, N.C.
Schmidt, The Columbian’s All-Region girls track and field athlete of the year, had personal-best marks/times in two of the seven events.
And yet, she didn’t win any of the events, but didn’t need to as points are awarded based on times and distances.
Schmidt was in third place after the first day of competition. She started with a 15.36-second run in the 100-meter hurdles, then cleared 4 feet, 11 inches in the high jump, had a personal best in the shot put at 35-2½, and ran the 200 in 26.10.
Day 2 of the heptathlon saw Schmidt land a long jump at 15-10¼, and throw the javelin 102-8, which put her 36 points behind leader Jada Green of Durham, N.C., going into the final event.
According to her father, Frank Schmidt, Valerie needed to run 2.5 seconds faster than Green in the 800 in order to win the title.
Schmidt turned out a three-second personal best of 2:25.68 and won the title by 79 points over Green. Schmidt finished with 4,544 points.
Yamaguchi, Mueller fastest at Round Lake
Shun Yamaguchi, 17, was the fastest at the Round Lake 5K on July 25, posting a time of 19 minutes, 15 seconds. There were 80 runners total in the Clark County Running Club event.
Katarina Mueller was the fastest women’s runner, placing sixth overall in 21:42. (Click here for complete results)
The second Round Lake 3-mile run is 7 p.m. Wednesday at Round Lake Park in Camas. The course is a hilly 3-mile run by Lacamas Lake Park and hosted by the Mountain View cross country team.
Coming up on Aug. 8 and 15 are two 5K Leverich Park runs, hosted by the Prairie High cross country team. Both runs start at 7 p.m.
More information can be found online at clarkcountyrunningclub.org.
