By Marissa Kuik | Colorado MileSplit
The distance side saw some underclassmen perform incredibly well at the Arcadia Invitational, on top of some huge breakout performances in the sprints and in the high jump, making this week’s future stars segment very impressive!
Madison Lange, Cherokee Trail High School
It is no surprise that Lange is having such a strong freshman year for track after her incredible cross country season. Lange ran a personal best time for the 5k of 16:58 during the season, and she qualified individually for the Nike XC National Championship! She ended her 9th grade season with a 25th place finish on the national stage! Moving right into track, Lange has already run on some pretty big stages, with her best races coming from the Texas Distance Festival, running times of 2:11 in the 800m and 4:47 for the 1600m! She placed 2nd overall in the 1600m and 3rd in the 800m at the Texas Distance Festival. Then, this past weekend, Lange chose to compete in the Invitational section for the mile at the very competitive Arcadia Invitational. She ran 4:50 for the full mile to place 4th overall in the strong field! Check out her interview from Arcadia below:
https://co.milesplit.com/videos/embed/806778
Though she is so young and the season is only about half way over, Lange still has a lot of time to grow and improve, and it will be exciting to see how she prospers throughout the rest of her high school career!
Addyson Timock, Fort Collins High School
Timock had an incredible day at the Pomona Invitational, hitting a new personal best time of 11.97 in the 100m – her first time under 12 seconds and she is only a sophomore! She was also one of the youngest athletes to make the 100m final in one of the most competitive fields in the state of Colorado. She ended up 6th overall in the stacked field! Her day in the 100m was a huge breakthrough performance as well, with her previous best sitting at 12.33, so she took off a massive amount of time to make the final and break 12 seconds in the race! She is currently the fastest sophomore in the state of Colorado and is ranked #4 for the grade in the 200m with her time of 25.47 she ran earlier in the year.
Kolton Radford, Stratton High School
Talk about huge breakthrough performances and Radford definitely had one this past weekend in the high jump! For this freshman before this weekend, he had currently hit marks of 5-6 twice and 5-1. However, this past weekend, Radford jumped 6-1, achieving a seven inch personal best! He is also tied for #1 for freshmen in the whole state of Colorado! He is also the top ranked high jumper in Class 1A after this huge improvement this past weekend! Since this is his first season in track, it will be exciting to see what other events he tries or continues to improve on as he grows in the sport.
Benjamin Olds, Palmer Ridge High School
Olds performed quite well at the Arcadia Invitational taking home two individual wins in the Rising Star division of the mile and the Open division of the 3200m! In the mile, Olds ran an incredible time of 4:13 and then went on to break 9 minutes in the 3200m, running a time of 8:57! Check out his interview from the meet this past weekend:
https://co.milesplit.com/videos/embed/806774
Both marks were huge PRs for this sophomore, where his previous season best marks were 4:20 in the 1600m and 9:37 in the 3200m. Though both of the times were run at sea level and will not count for the state rankings, it definitely shows his potential in the events even as he races again at altitude. Olds is in one of the hardest classifications when it comes to the distance events for qualifying, but if he rides the momentum of his double win and personal best times from Arcadia, his shot at making it to the state meet is very strong! We definitely have not heard the last of Olds, and we are very excited to see what he can do the rest of this season!