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celebrating top performances week after week...</h3>
Landon Gonser and Chyna Ries put marks onto the top of the leaderboard last weekend and dominated their events at the respective meets. Contributed photo/photo by Ashley Green.
Less than three weeks away now, the State Championships are on everybody’s mind. Here are two more athletes you should keep an eye on in the competition to come.
Landon Gonser went above and beyond at the WeldCo Championships on Friday. The senior from Greeley Central High School won the long jump, the triple jump, and also helped his school take both titles in the 4x100 and 4x200.
Out of all his victories however, the long jump proved to be the most rewarding. Winning with a mark of 22-11.5, Gonser set a new meet record, a new school record and the best long jump of the season so far for Colorado.
“I just woke up and told myself it was going to be a good day and it happened,” Gonser explained. “I was just feeling it that day. I knew when I was warming up that something was not normal. I was just feeling really good.”
It was a day unlike any other for Gonser. Before Friday, Gonser’s best long jump was 22-0. He improved 11.5 inches and broke a record that had been standing at his school for 60 years.
“It feels good to be the first one to beat it after so long,” Gonser said. “It was the longest standing record at my school. To know there were many many people before me trying to do the same thing, it felt great to be the one to finally do it.”
It is turning out to be quite the senior season for Gonser--he has progressed tremendously this spring. “I’ve had a breakthrough not just in the jumps but in everything I do,” said Gonser. “I’ve just been working at it. PRs have been coming every week and everything’s just coming together this season. The coaches have been putting in extra efforts and I’ve found it within myself too. I knew the first day of practice that good things were going to come this season.”
He’s broken records, immensely improved both his long jump and triple jump PRs, and is also proving to be a vital leg in Greeley Central’s 4x100 and 4x200 teams currently ranked 2nd and 3rd in the state for 4A. Gonser has set some big expectations for himself in the final few weeks of the season. “I’ll hopefully beat that long jump record again,” he said. “I want to keep going farther. Now I’m just going to set higher goals and have farther jumps.”
Chyna Ries is also having a successful senior year. Ries won the Liberty Bell Invitational 200 at 24.33 and long jump at 20-1.5. The 200 time is currently the state’s best.
“I was just trying to get good marks and good times on the board for going into state,” Ries explained. “The 200 felt good because I’m just getting back into them since sophomore year. It felt good to know that I’m the best in the state even though I haven’t been practicing it as much. It gives me confidence.”
Ries is no foreigner to success in this sport. Her freshman year she won the long jump and 200 in the 5A State Championships and returned her sophomore year to reclaim her long jump title. Ries was not able to compete her junior year after transferring from George Washington High School to Denver East High school but this year she is back, better than ever and ready to win more state titles. “This year I’m aiming for the win in all three of my events, the long jump, 100, and 200,” she said. “I’m wanting to go out with a bang.”
So far, she is on track to doing that. Ries is leading the way in the 200, ranked 4th for 5A in the 100 and she is first in the 5A long jump rankings by almost 1.5 feet. An added bonus, her long jump PR this season of 20-3.25 is ranked third in the nation for high schoolers. “My marks and times are state ranked and nationally ranked,” Ries said. “I want to stay on the top.”
Ries has been consistently good and consistently improving each season she has competed and with the way her season is shaping up, more success is undoubtedly in her future. “I’ve just had to say humble and keep working hard,” Ries explained. “I have to know my goals every day I train. If I didn’t keep my goals in mind I would be doing it for no reason.”
Congratulations to Landon Gonser and Cyna Ries on being named Colorado Track XC’s athletes of the week. We hope all of Colorado’s track athletes continue to keep training hard with their goals in mind in the next weeks to come!