Winter track is one of the largest teams that athletes join this season. Cross country runners choose to spend their winter seemingly doing tough track workouts and racing in six-hour meets. However, there is another side to the season that is typically overlooked. Some athletes participating in events other than running including pole vaulting, high jumping and shot put often go unrecognized.
Junior Andrew Gallois, is one of four male pole vaulters this season. “I am better at pole vaulting. During the track seasons my focus is to improve my pole vaulting, not my running,” said Andrew.
Junior Isabella Orlando, says her focus is on high jump and that cross country is a sport that keeps her in shape for the track season. “I run cross country more or less to keep me in shape for track. It’s not my main focus, I would say high jump is more important to me. The reason I think high jump is more important to me is because of the team aspect of the sport. It’s way more fun than the cross country team.”
Other athletes focus only on a winter sport and spend their off season working out and preparing for the winter. Naomi Cimino is a perfect example. “I don’t do any other sports, outside of practice I try to workout 5-6 times a week to stay in shape for throwing.” she said.
“Track receives a lot of the focus even though a lot of the points for New Canaan come from pole vaulting, throwing and high jumping.” said Andrew.
Isabella Orlando has her own view and is confident the field side is the face of the winter track season and received the recognition it deserved. “The field events are what people think of when they think of winter track. They are so popular and entertaining because they are so unique compared to the running events.” she said.
One of the points both Naomi and Andrew brought up was the amount of points the field events score compared to the track team. “I would say out of all the sports in our school, considering it scores most of the points at each meet across the entire season.” said Naomi. She was proud to say over 66% of the school’s points at last year’s FCIACs came from throwing.
This year Naomi worked hard to place third at FCIACs the shot put and Andrew Gallois and Isabella Orlando fought for sixth place pole vaulting and high jumping respectively.
