By Mitch Abramson
Rosalind Adams is a fast walker. The Townsend Harris senior walks to class fast and walks around her Upper East Side neighborhood in Manhattan fast. Adams is a race-walker on the Hawks outdoor track and field team. Unlike in football and basketball, where scouts and street agents scour the backwoods for the next big thing, nobody ever recruited Adams to walk. Nobody ever offered her an envelope filled with cash. The sport isn’t built like that.
On Saturday at the PSAL City Championship at St. John’s, Adams broke the previous meet record in the race-walk. In doing so, she brought attention to a sport normally viewed as the walkout bout on a boxing show.
Adams finished the 1500-meter race in 6:52.76, easily beating runner-up Anine Stanley from Campus Magnet by more then a minute and shattering the previous meet record of 7:24.63 set in 2001 by Elba Melendez of John F. Kennedy.
The city championship brought out the best from Townsend Harris, which finished third overall in team points with 66 behind runner-up A.P. Randolph with 90 and DeWitt Clinton’s 103.
Townsend Harris and first-year coach Tim Connor, sent 13 athletes to the city championship, the most by a school at the meet, and had competitors in 14 of the 20 events. Many of them had career days.
Devotia Moore, a freshman, ran the 2000-meter Steeplechase with water for the first time and won in 7:42.42. Kalima Smalls, a senior who wants to play football at Howard University in the fall, outstripped her previous best discus throw by nine feet by throwing 89-feet, five-inches.
The 3200-meter relay team of Joanna Reynolds, Selena Singleton, Amanda Pneuman and Devotia Moore, finished second in 10:03, 20 seconds faster than their previous best, and a tenth of a second ahead of Clara Barton High on a lean-in by Moore. Nene Kamate, a junior from Jamaica, won the 100-meter hurdles in 14.39. But nobody sparkled at the meet more than Adams.
“I wanted to break seven minutes, and I was really trying to push myself,” said Adams, who plans to attend UCLA in the fall, not to compete but to prepare for the 2008 Olympic race-walk team. “I was getting so tired during the race. I knew I could do it; I just had to concentrate.”
Adams began race-walking almost by accident. She was a slumping cross-country runner when she decided to give race-walking a try her junior year. In her first race she was disqualified for bending her knees (Race-walkers are not allowed to bend their lead foot). Once she picked up the mechanics she excelled, and cross-country became a warm-up for walking. Adams qualified for the 3000-meter run on Saturday but opted to focus her energies on the event she would set a PSAL record in.
One competitor who set the bar high was Jamaica’s Alexandria Condell, who won more events then any other Queens’ athlete at the PSAL championships. Condell took first in the 1500 and 3000-meter runs, but there was a time when Condell, a junior from Laurelton, wasn’t so sure about her gifts. Condell doubted her ability to succeed in track during her freshman and sophomore years.
“I asked myself: ‘Why am I doubting myself? I train hard and work hard. I should have more confidence in myself,” Condell said. “It was a matter of me changing how I was. I just pushed myself to excel.”
Reach Reporter Mitch Abramson by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300 Ext. 130.
