Competing against a field of 53 top jumpers from across the United States, Jared matched his 14th place incoming seed position with a lead-off 6.28m 20’7.25″ jump in the 15-16yo long jump at the USATF Junior Olympic Championships (results, photos).
He was the #2 jumper from the Northeast and 9th freshman. All the jumpers who beat him had 22+ foot PRs going into the meet. This was a tremendously deep meet with 24 jumpers exceeding 20 feet. Jared’s performance was quite good factoring in the headwind and the flat pit.
Nanny and Papa set a new Prior family record of driving 24 hours to see 24 seconds of competition.
This concluded a year of 24 long jump competitions for Jared.
The Newton tab included a long article Wednesday celebrating his representing the town in the meet (scan of newspaper, web):
Newton duo in Nationals Tour
Martin, Prior compete in Junior Olympics in N. Carolina
WALTHAM —
Starting this fall, Newton track and field athletes Clare Martin and Jared Prior will be competing on opposite sides of town as part of the Newton South and Newton North programs, respectively.
This week, however, both are representing the Waltham Youth Track Club at the Junior Olympic National Championship in Greensboro, N.C.
Martin, the recent Brown Middle School graduate who will be a freshman at South High this fall, will run the 1,500 in her first trip to Nationals as a track athlete after previously competing in cross country. Prior, who will be a sophomore at North, will be making his fourth appearance at a national meet, but his first with the WTC after previously going independently and with a contingent of North High teammates.
Both said during a practice at Waltham’s J. Lee Gould Track last week that they were taking high hopes with them to North Carolina.
Prior, who helped North to the Division 1 Eastern Mass. and All-States championships with his performance in the long jump this spring, was also eyeing a possible spot in the 15-16 boys national finals with a good jump after also taking first at the Region 1 final in New York.
“It’s a very deep meet,†he said. “There are a lot of jumpers doing much better than I am. I have started to really appreciate the importance of when I execute. That’s what I want to go down there and do. I’ve been fouling a lot of jumps, and to get in the finals down there I will need to have a big jump.â€
Prior joined the WTC last year at the urging of his older sister, Kayla, who was both a member of WTC and the All-State champion North girls track and field team a year ago.
“It helps a lot that she did it,†he said. “It’s pretty much why I’m here. Before I started doing track, she was nagging a lot that I should try track. So I started out at the middle school. Then when I realized I wanted to be serious about it, I started coming here when I got to the high school just to get the technical stuff down.
“I first jumped 20 feet in eighth grade. I thought that I did that without yet being super special in form. So I thought track was my sport.â€
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The Newton athletes were two of the WTC’s 25 national qualifiers from the Region 1 meet. Newton’s Adrianna Batista, Orenna Brand, Max Hernandez and Rose Teszler also competed in New York.
The Junior Olympic Nationals began Monday and conclude on Sunday.
