Betsy returns to AAU Jr. Olympics
Published 8:42 pm Thursday, July 9, 2015
Betsy Pollard of Suffolk will be back in the Amateur Athletic Union Junior Olympic Games this year with an expanded array of things to do.
Fourteen-year-old Betsy Pollard of Suffolk has qualified to compete in four different events at the 2015 AAU Junior Olympic Games, expanding on the two she qualified to compete in last year. (Lou Pollard photo)
She went to Iowa last year for the Games, competing in the 1,500- and 3,000-meter runs. This year, she will be competing in the 1,500-, 3,000- and 800-meter runs and the triple jump after making the cut in each event within the 14-year-old girls’ division at the recent AAU Region 05 Qualifier at Lakeland High School.
“I felt pretty good,” she said of her performance at the qualifier. “I PR’d in all of my events except one,” she said, using the acronym for personal record. “I felt overall it was pretty good that I qualified in all of my events.”
Only the top eight finishers in running events qualified for the AAU Junior Olympics, and only the top seven made it through in field events.
Betsy’s chances of making the cut in the 800 seemed slim at first.
“This year, she was seeded 16,” said her mother, Lou Pollard, illustrating how high her daughter had to climb on the leaderboard. “She did it. She finished fifth.”
Her finishing time was 2:38.28, six seconds faster than her previous PR.
She took fourth in the 1,500 with a time of 5:32.60, cutting .03 seconds off her previous best time.
The 3,000 proved to be a struggle for Betsy after she got a side stitch in the third of eight laps. It slowed her pace considerably, and she had to use her inhaler immediately after the race, but she was still able to place sixth with a time of 13:37.43.
The qualifier represented the first time she had competed in the triple jump.
“I wanted to try something new, and I didn’t want to do the long jump,” she said. “The triple jump’s more of a challenge, and I wanted to just try it out.”
The event requires a lot of coordination.
“It’s like a hop, skip and a jump,” Betsy said. “It’s kind of confusing.”
She had been practicing for it, but actually competing proved to be a major learning process when she discovered she had not been practicing at the right measurements.
She fouled her first three attempts but met all the requirements of the event on the fourth jump and took seventh place with a 25-foot 11.25-inch triple jump.
Betsy is currently suffering from a right foot injury, though an X-ray did not indicate a fracture. She is hoping to receive good news from an MRI soon so she can train for the AAU Junior Olympic Games, which will hold its track and field events at Norfolk State University this year, Aug. 1-8.
