4A STATE TRACK: Parathlete star Annie Carey embracing first state meet | High School Sports Coverage | idahopress.com

2022-05-21 15:48:56 By : Ms. Yanqin Zeng

Bishop Kelly long jumper Annie Carey competes at the State Track and Field competition on Friday at Dona Larson Park in Boise.

Emmett pole vaulter Landon Helms makes a practice run during State Track and Field competition on Friday at Dona Larson Park.

Emmett’s Tatum Richards stops short in an attempt during the State Track and Field competition on Friday at Dona Larson Park.

Bishop Kelly long jumper Annie Carey competes at the State Track and Field competition on Friday at Dona Larson Park in Boise.

Emmett pole vaulter Landon Helms makes a practice run during State Track and Field competition on Friday at Dona Larson Park.

Emmett’s Tatum Richards stops short in an attempt during the State Track and Field competition on Friday at Dona Larson Park.

BOISE — It wasn’t until midway through the year that the Bishop Kelly track and field team realized it had a world-record holder on the squad.

Even more surprising, Knights coach Jeff Carpenter said, is that Annie Carey keeps breaking her own record.

Carey, a Bishop Kelly junior, was born with a left cleft foot and unable to lift her foot with the help of an ankle prosthetic. But where others might see disability, Carey has found opportunity. As a parathlete, Carey has traveled the world to chase her dream of competing in the Paralympics.

On Friday, Carey was an Idaho State Track and Field Championship competitor for the first time. The Bishop Kelly junior didn’t make it to the finals in the long jump event and ran the leadoff leg of the Knights’ 800-meter sprint medley relay team. She’ll be an alternate for Bishop Kelly’s 4x100 relay team on Saturday.

“It’s allowed me to feel confident in who I am and embrace my disability and my story,” Carey said about competing in track and field. “It’s allowed me to compete internationally and earn medals for my country and represent who I am.”

At just 17-years-old, Carey already has a decorated track and field career. She was a bronze medalist in the 100 meters at the 2019 World Para Athletics Junior Championships in Switzerland and also competed in the Parapan American Games in Peru that same year. She has also been named to the U.S. Paralympic High School All-American Team in the 100, 200 and long jump.

“A lot of people think she’s just a jumper, but she’s actually very fast,” said Carpenter. “She’s in the big mix for our relay teams and big part of our sprint medley team.”

But the long jump is where she holds the world record. Carey first set a T-44 record — T-44 being the classification of her disability — at the 2019 Desert Challenge Games in Tempe, Arizonza, with a distance of 4.49 meters, about 14 feet, 8.75 inches. She’s unofficially broken her own world record three times during this season, most recently at the Boise City Championships on May 5 with a distance of 16-7.

But before her string of record breakers, Carey suffered another setback, completely unrelated to her foot. In sixth grade she was diagnosed with scoliosis and had to wear a back brace every time she wasn’t competing in sports. It required her to undergo spinal fusion surgery in December 2020.

She was back on the track for the spring, but during the 2021 season saw her times and distances take a dip, but she spent the entire year training to get back to the level she had been at before. It earned her a new experience competing at state this week, albeit one that is a bit closer to home than the adventures she’s used to.

“It’s definitely taken this whole year to get back to that point,” Carey said. “It’s exciting and a different feeling to see myself at state and back to where I was pre-surgery. Even though I didn’t do as great as I wanted to today, it’s still a reminder that my hard work got me here and I did my best.”

EMMETT’S HELMS ADDS TWO STATE TITLES

Landon Helms didn’t know until Sunday that he’d be competing in the long jump at state.

Heck, until that point the Emmett senior didn’t even know at-large bids were a thing. He had assumed after finishing seventh at the District III meet that his jumping season was over.

On Friday, he was a state champion in the event, finishing with a personal best 23-1.

“At districts, I was really flat off the boards,” Helms said. “I’ve always said senior year is my redemption year, so this was my double redemption week. Not only for last year, but for long jump. I was just fired up, I was ready to go and I just executed.”

Helms followed that up with a state champion in the pole vault, his third state title in the event and his sixth state title in high school career. His vault of 15-0 was good for the state title, but a far cry from his personal best of 17-2. Facing a headwind, he faulted on all three of his 16-0 attempts.

Helms will try and add two more state titles in the 110- and 300-meter hurdles. He’s won two state titles in the 110.

Last season, Helms failed to qualify for the finals of the 300 hurdles, blacking out during the preliminaries and tripping over a hurdle. On Friday, Helms said that event is part of his “redemptions.” He blames the blackout for not drinking enough water throughout the day.

“I blacked out, fell over the hurdle and didn’t make it to finals,” he said. “I’m not going to make that same mistake again.”

RICHARDS WINS SECOND STRAIGHT POLE VAULT TITLE

Emmett junior Tatum Richards said it wasn’t until the last couple of weeks of the season that she started feeling like things were coming together in the pole vault.

Richards had changed poles and suffered a sprained wrist earlier this season, but on Friday she was state champion for a second year in a row, with a vault of 13-0.

“It feels really good,” said Richards. “I had a really tough season until two weeks ago, so I was glad I was able to come back.

She broke her own state meet record twice, once at 12-9, then at 13-0. She then tried for 13-3, which would have broken her personal record of 13-2, set two weeks ago at the BYU Invitational.

BISHOP KELLY’S LUTEYN WINS SHOT PUT TITLE AFTER CLOSE RUNNER-UP FINISH LAST YEAR

Three inches were all that separated Jacoba Luteyn from winning a pair of state titles last year.

On Friday, the Bishop Kelly senior claimed one of those titles. She’ll look to grab the other today.

Luteyn had a throw off 44-3.25 to claim the shot put state title, a year after losing out by one inch to Emmett’s Lacy Yates. She’ll aim for a title in the discus today, an event she lost to Yates, who has since graduated, by two inches last year.

“It was really upsetting, but I was proud of (Yates), too,” Luteyn said about the two close calls. “That put me in the mindset to come out this year, give it all I can and know that I can win.”

Luteyn said the key to this year was not trying to worry too much about the minor mechanics when she gets into the ring and to let her muscle memory take over. It worked out perfectly for her on the winning throw, her second throw of prelims. It beat her previous personal best, one set at last week’s District III meet, by 15 inches.

“When I got into the ring, I told myself to forget about the technicalities, just to go out there and give it my best,” Luteyn said. “That’s exactly what I did. I went out there and did all that I could do.”

John Wustrow is the assistant sports editor of the Idaho Press. He is a Michigan native and a graduate of Indiana University.

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