2012 USATF National Cross Country Junior Olympic Championships: December 8th in Albuquerque, NM

Let’s Help Our Native Youth Represent!

Junior Olympics

The Opportunity: USA Track and Field (USATF) holds a National Junior Olympics Cross Country Championship each December. Many of our NM youth fundraise each year to travel to nationals, but this year we will be hosting the national meet at Albuquerque’s Balloon Fiesta Park, Saturday December  8th, 2012. In addition to making it easier for local athletes to travel to nationals, there are changes in the qualifying process that make it easier for athletes from the host state to make it to nationals – this is our year to get as many of our youth as possible to make it to the national race!

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Posted in RACES 2012

Olympic Cross Country?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve listened to my mother’s frustrated pleas as rhytmic gymnasts and badminton players take the Olympic stage: “What about the cross-country runners??!!” Though I certainly share her curiosity (& frustration), I’ve most often replied with something to the tune of “that’s just the way it is”. But why?

An Olympic cross-country meet would induce excitement the world-around. If the competition remained true to the current international standard, viewers might expect a 3,000m Steeple/BMX-hybrid sure to produce gritty champions, a tenacious team battle and, most important of all, filthy falls.

So what is Brazil waiting for? Rio certainly has the hills…

The truth is cross-country WAS an Olympic sport. From 1912-1924 (Stockholm, Berlin (cancelled due to WWI), Antwerp, Paris), a steeple-like course was devised to torture harriers. Sadly, the competition was apparently forgotten about by the IOC after the Parisian course decimated a formidable field of runners on a particularly hot day.

To learn more about the history of the sport of cross-country and why it might have been blacklisted by the Olympic Committee, please read Bill Katovsky’s enlightening article from the Natural Running Center website.

So who will carry the torch in the crusade to reinstate my beloved in the Olympics? Perhaps it will have to be Wings of America. With some luck, we’ll convince Wings board-member Billy Mills to put us in touch with the right people in Switzerland. Who’s with me?

Posted in WINGS SUMMER 2012

Another Successful Wings Summer

Wings of America is proud wrap up another successful summer schedule of Wings Running & Fitness Camps. With the help of 19 high-school and college-aged facilitators, the organization provided two FREE days of applied fitness and nutrtion education to 17 Native communities across Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Our fantastic facilitators led participants on morning runs and engaged them with Native-tailored field and ball games….But that’s not all they did. Stay tuned in the coming days for further reports from this summer’s camps and more pictures!

 

 

Posted in RUNING & FITNESS CAMPS, WINGS SUMMER 2012

Taking Flight

Welcome to the new internet home of Wings of America! We hope you enjoy the new site. Be sure to keep checking this blog for the latest news from the organization and updates on our programs. Aside from information about recently scheduled events, the blog will offer visitors photos of our programs, training tips, nutrition education, results from races around Indian Country, and a forum for discussing topics related to Native running and sports in general. Please feel free to use the comments section to ask questions and get the conversation started! We here in the Wings office will do our best to facilitate.

In other news, Wings of America now has a twitter!  Visit our page to start receiving our tweets: https://twitter.com/WingsofAmerica

 

 

Posted in WINGS SUMMER 2012