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NXN Nationals Preview - Florida Athlete's edition by Herb Wills - NXN 2014Published by
So far, so good. However, getting to Nationals is just a step along the way. You also want to excel in the championship. Optimally, you want to win it. It’s like the Olympics--making the team is nice, but you’re really there to win a medal. Yes, I know the Olympic creed: "The important thing in life is not the triumph, but the fight; the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well." I know the Olympic creed, but I suspect that it’s a low percentage of gold medalists who subscribe to it.
Sukhi Khosla and Franco Martins en route to a runner-up and 4th place finish respectively at NXN Southeast
At NXN, Leon senior Sukhi Khosla should run well, but after a second-place 14:56.0 finish in the Southeast Region he’d have to be considered a longshot to win. Windermere Prep senior Franco Martins took fourth in the same race with a PR 14:59.2, also qualifying for a trip to Portland for the Nationals. It was the third week in a row of tough racing for Martins, who had won the FACA All-Star meet a week earlier and the class 1A FHSAA state title the week before that. A fourth week of championship racing sounds tough, but maybe Martins is just hitting his stride. After all, he’s never raced this close to Khosla. On the girls’ side, Winter Park frosh Rafaella Gibbons also ran the best time of her career at NXN Southeast, 17:39.40, the best time this season by a Florida girl and ten seconds faster than she ran on the same course back in October. However, Gibbons placed sixth in the race. She’ll compete in Portland, but so will five girls who finished well ahead of her in the Region. This is Gibbons’ first year at Winter Park, though, so she could be gaining experience that would be valuable at a future NXN.
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As it turns out, no Florida athlete has ever won at NXN yet. It could still be a goal to have the best performance of any Floridian ever at NXN. What history will Khosla, Martins, and Gibbons be competing against?
RELATED - Mo Farah Welcomes Athletes to NXN 2014 Like Gibbons, Brian Atkinson was a pioneer at NXN. As a Melbourne junior in 2008, Atkinson was the first athlete from Florida to compete at NXN, finishing 58th in 16:06.8. The following year, Columbus junior Armando DelValle placed 14th at NXN, running 15:34.3 and leading his team to 22nd place in the team standings. DelValle’s 2009 finish remains the high-water mark for Florida’s athletes at NXN. DelValle himself was back without his team in 2010, but couldn’t approach his own performance of the previous year, running 17:46.4 for 100th. In 2011 Belen Jesuit senior Elliot Clemente ran 15:43.58 for 20th at NXN. He didn’t finish quite as high up as Del Valle had two years earlier, but Clemente had the consolation of leading Belen Jesuit to 20th in the team standings, the best placing of any Florida team ever at NXN. Florida’s most recent competitor at NXN was Nick Diaz. As a Miami Sunset junior, Diaz ran 16:04 in the 2013 NXN championship race, placing 79th. This year NXN has moved from Portland Meadows to Glendoveer Golf Course. In spite of the new course, Khosla and Martins will be following in the footsteps of the Floridians that came before them. They’ll be leaving some of their own footsteps behind as well.
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NXN RACE SCHEDULE - Saturday, December 6, 2014 - Glendoveer Golf Course, Portland OR More news |
It has been an exciting post season in cross country. Panhandle athlete Sukhi Khosla heads up a contingent of three Florida cross-country runners headed to Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon, with another two on their way to Foot Locker Nationals.
On the girls’ side, Gibbons has already made history. No Florida girl has ever made it to NXN. The Winter Park frosh will be establishing targets for future athletes.