Nicola Garoutte article (CA)

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http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cct ... 037190.htm

At 13 Garoutte is one of the area's best pole vaulters
By James Leonard
STAFF WRITER
In case anyone doubted just how good Nicola Garoutte is, she's got the bruises to prove it.

The 13-year-old has been pole vaulting for only seven months and was still jumping just 7 feet in May. But when her pole started bending during her vaults -- and thus rubbing hard against her wrists -- she knew she was making progress.

"You know you're getting better when (the pole) starts bending," she said. "And you get bruises on your wrists -- that means you're doing it right.

"I have a lot of them."

As is often the case with beginning pole vaulters, Garoutte's vaults increased in height dramatically once her pole started bending and pushing her higher into the air. That type of improvement might be common; what she did next certainly is not.

Garoutte won the Pacific Association youth division pole vault championship in June and easily met the qualifying height for the USA Youth Outdoor Track and Field championships in Greensboro, N.C., two weeks later.

She won there, too. By a lot.

Garoutte's winning jump of 9 feet, 8 inches was nearly a foot higher than any of her competitors, and though she's yet to begin her eighth-grade year at Orinda Intermediate School, that mark would have ranked her 10th among area high schoolers last season and would have been the 15th-best jump at the North Coast Section Meet of Champions.

Her winning streak continued Sunday, when she won the Region 14 championships at Granada High School in Livermore with a Pacific Association record vault of 9-6. The victory qualified her for the Junior Olympics later this month in Baltimore, where she'll again compete against the nation's best.

Garoutte's goal there is to reach 10 feet -- a mark she's hit in practice but narrowly missed in competition -- and her coach, Craig Smith, said Garoutte will likely finish somewhere in the top five or six.

Also qualifying for the Junior Olympics was Lotus Fung, Garoutte's teammate under Smith in the Piedmont Track and Field Club. Fung placed second in the intermediate girls division with a vault of 10-6 but won't compete at the Junior Olympics because of a conflict with her summer course load at Laney Junior College. Smith plans to take Fung to next week's prestigious Track City International Classic at the University of Oregon to make up for it.

Garoutte, who also competes in the 100-, 200- and 400-yard dashes as well as the high jump, long jump and shot put, has a new favorite event in the pole vault. But despite her rapid ascent to the upper echelon of youth pole vaulters, she still hasn't decided what to do in the spring of 2008.

That's when she'll have to choose which of her two favorite sports -- track or swimming -- she'll compete in as a freshman at Miramonte.

"I like them both, and I've been swimming since I was 5 or 6," Garoutte said. "It's going to be a really hard decision."

Whatever she chooses, it seems almost a foregone conclusion that she'll be successful. Already 5-foot-8 -- "She's quite a physical specimen," her father, Chris, said. "I can't claim anything but part contribution for that" -- Garoutte seems to have all the physical attributes found in great athletes.

And, at least for now, she has the will.

"She does take competition very seriously, and if she doesn't compete to her expectations, it'll bother her," Smith said. "Not in an unhealthy way, but to a point where she uses it as a platform to motivate herself for her next competition."

Garoutte had been involved with track for three years when she decided to try the pole vault last December. Her father sought out Smith, whom Nicola calls "the best coach I've ever had." Smith's club, which he started three years ago, is still in the growing stages. He has around 10 athletes, primarily pole vaulters, but their ages range from 11 to over 50.

His other top vaulter, along with Garoutte, is Fung.

Fung, who just finished her sophomore year at Piedmont High School, experienced the same kind of pole-bending improvement that so quickly elevated Garoutte to a national level. After becoming Piedmont's best freshman vaulter at around 7 feet, Fung finished as one of the top sophomores in the section with a personal best of 10-9.

"She makes it happen," said Smith, who also coaches Fung as an assistant at Piedmont. "She succeeds because she's out there longer than everybody, she works harder than everybody -- she's extremely competitive. That's why she's made so much progress in the last year."

When Fung talks about her goals, though, school comes first. She takes courses at Laney both during the summer and during the high school year. She plans to attend UCLA, where she'll enter as a junior thanks to the course work she's completing now.

Even her athletic aspirations are tied to academics. Her goal in the pole vault? Jump high enough to make the team at UCLA (she thinks 13 feet might do it). And if she doesn't? Well, she'll put down her pole for good.

"I'd say academics is 1a and (track) is probably 1b," Smith said. "(Pole vaulting) is very important to her, and she takes it very seriously.

"I think she's just one of those people that once they commit to something, it's all or nothing, regardless of what it is."