The final scoreboard showed Peter Karasakalides leading the field with a commanding performance. In the shot put, the senior powerhouse launched a massive throw, claiming first place with a mark of 10.3 meters Just moments later, he dominated the 1500-meter race, outpacing his rivals with a strong final kick to cross the finish line first in 5:00.02 With his impressive double victory, Karasakalides propelled his score, setting new personal records at the outdoor track meet, showcasing his versatility and determination on a sunny afternoon.
“I was super impressed with Peter’s performance,” Ms. Whitney, assistant coach of the Boys’ Outdoor Track team, said. “I was so proud of him because he pushed himself in every event, and he did such a good job representing the whole team.”
With the support of the existing members on the team and new talents joining the team, the team’s performance has been exponentially increasing. Junior Andy Tieu feels that out of all the seasons so far, “this is definitely one of the best ones.”
“Everyone on the team has been PRing,” Tieu said. “We’ve got so many new runners as well from indoor and cross-country season, freshmen and sophomores with a lot of talent. A lot of our teammates are scoring top six, which is the cutoff for points.”
Following the reconstruction of the school’s track, track athletes were forced to train by running laps around the school as a substitute. However, this hasn’t stopped the athlete’s unwavering will to attend practice.
“Now we’re only allowed to practice on the outside of the school because we don’t have [a] track anymore,” Karasakalides said. “But even then, that gave us like more motivation to do better. We don’t have track, but we’re still going to practice. We’re still going to improve ourselves no matter what gets in our face.”
The team was able to work through their problems to give them the best shot at winning different events and setting new personal.
“In one of the first meets, we almost got our relay team DQ’d, but that was mostly because of our bad behavior,” Karasakalides said. “Really, that’s been affecting our entire training, just bad behavior and bad motivation. But over time, we’ve grown to pick each other up and stuff like that. So really, we have all helped each other ever since then.”
Despite the extremely high performance displayed by the team, keeping this up isn’t as simple. Tieu expressed that an important aspect of performing well is closely tied to recovery as well as ample training.
“I think some of the people on the team have a problem with not sleeping enough and not feeling enough,” Tieu said. “There’s definitely not a problem with people not showing up. Everyone shows up, everyone puts in the work, but it’s just a matter of recovery.”
