Sanne Holland, Isaiah Rigo compete with others at paralympic national meet in Florida
By JOHN McCALLUM
Editor
Even though she's just finished her sophomore year, Cheney runner Sanne Holland has already been in some big meets.
She just won the 2A state 3,200-meter title four weeks ago and has been instrumental in guiding the Blackhawks' girls cross country team to fourth- and second-place state finishes in 2009 and 2010, finishing third individually each year.
Big stuff, but the competition she faces this week is the biggest yet. Holland is competing June 17-19 at the USA Paralympic National Championships in Miramar, Fla. She'll be a guide runner, assisting TyJuan Stevens, a 19-year-old recent graduate of Spokane's Lewis and Clark High School and sprinter on Team St. Luke's, St. Luke's Rehabilitation Institute's adaptive sports medicine team.
On the line is a trip to the Parapan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico Nov. 11-20.
“These are the trials to make standards for the Guadalajara Pan Am Games,” Team St. Luke's coordinator Teresa Skinner said.
Nine St. Luke's athletes are competing in Florida, and Holland isn't the only Cheney-area representative. Windsor Elementary School fifth-grader Isaiah Rigo is also headed to Miramar to compete in the wheelchair 100, 200, 400 and 800 events.
Holland got involved with Team St. Luke's through her father Kurt, who has been president of the Cheney Track Club for the past 4-5 years. The club is affiliated under the Junior Olympics organization, a branch of the USA Track and Field Association (USATF) that is in charge of the U.S. Olympic Team.
Kurt Holland said a few years ago the USA Paralympic Team came under the U.S. Olympic committee umbrella and USATF, with paralympic games following Olympic games' guidelines. With the Cheney Track Club hosting the Inland Northwest Association Championships the past four years at Eastern Washington University, a meet open to everyone including paralympic athletes, the affiliation opened possibilities.
“When I realized this three years ago, Teresa and I got together and began planning a fully integrated meet with both able-bodied and paralympic athletes,” Holland said. “From what I understand, (it's) one of the first in the country.”
Sanne Holland met Stevens when she attended a camp put on by Team St. Luke's in mid-May. Skinner called her after the camp and said they needed a guide runner for athletes at the June 4 Inland Northwest Association meet at EWU.
Holland competed at the meet, but not with Stevens. Afterwards, Skinner called Holland again and asked if she would guide Stevens in the 200-meter dash at the 36th annual Bigfoot Track and Field Meet June 7 at Spokane Falls Community College, a qualifier for the national championships.
“We qualified and she (Skinner) called me the next day and said, ‘Do you want to come to Florida?'” Holland said.
For Skinner, Team St. Luke's is not only her job but also her passion. While working as a traveling therapist doing spinal cord rehabilitation work in Atlanta she had a chance to see a first-class paralympic adaptive sports team in action.
When she came to Spokane in 1993 she saw nothing like it in the area. Soon, she came into contact with a 29-year-old quadriplegic at an area nursing home who was told his condition would never allow him to leave the home.
It was impacting his personal life, destroying his marriage, and despite her best efforts to the contrary, he could not be convinced there were other opportunities for him. One of those opportunities was in sports, something Skinner believed could improve his life.
In 1995, she and five people with physical disabilities approached officials at St. Luke's with a proposition to start a paralympic team.
“I told them I'd do all the fundraising and we could even name it the ‘Dukes of St. Luke's,' whatever,” Skinner said. “They said yes, and in the first four and a half months we raised over $27,000.”
Much of that money was spent on equipment for the first St. Luke's sports team – wheelchair rugby. That team was made up of seven players – including the 29-year-old quadriplegic who began playing a game that changed his life.
“It worked,” Skinner said. “He got back together with his wife and never went back to the home.”
Team St. Luke's launched its first competitive youth team, wheelchair basketball, in 1999, adding track and field a year later. It now has 15 sports with more than 40 athletes competing, supported by numerous community businesses and organizations that include Rocky Mountain Medical, a medical supply company formed by members of Team St. Luke's original rugby squad.
Right now, Team St. Luke's focus is on track and field, specifically what's taking place in Miramar. The team left for Florida June 14, looking to get in some practice time at the Ansin Sports Complex before Friday.
It will be a chance for Holland and Stevens to get better acquainted on the track.
“Pretty much I run next to him the whole way,” Holland said about the guide runner position.
The pair is hooked together by an 8-10 inch lanyard that is tied off at both ends in a loop. They then place their middle and ring fingers through the loop at either end.
The lanyard keeps the pair in contact with each other, but just as importantly, it helps them synchronize their arm motion during the race, Skinner said. It's a crucial part of helping them mirror each other's stride, beginning with how they take the first steps and maintaining rhythm throughout the race.
“When they get their stride completely synced it's beautiful to watch,” Skinner said.
At the Bigfoot, their time in their initial 200-meter race together was 31.23 seconds. They will also be paired in the 100, which Stevens did in 13.97, and the 400, 1:04.
Windsor fifth-grader Rigo also faces some pretty high stakes in Florida. The 12-year-old, youngest member of the team, has been with Team St. Luke's since 2007.
A complete newcomer to using the racing chair, he proved a quick learner, qualifying for the Junior National Disability Championships in the 100, 200 and 400. The following year he returned to nationals, this time making the trip without his parents.
“That was awesome,” Rigo said with a grin that could have split his head in half.
This year he's added a fourth event, the 800, but that's not the challenge. Skinner said Rigo's experience so far has been against athletes his age.
At nationals, that will change.
“This is actually the first time he will be on the same track with the big boys,” Skinner said. “He'll be competing at the same time with paralympians, some who are adults of various ages.”
One look at Rigo and you know he doesn't care. He's used to big challenges, including finishing this year's Bloomsday race in 56 minutes.
Holland is equally stoked, and anyone who has watched her on the track or cross country courses throughout the region knows it's hard to hold her back. While that's great, she thinks she may have discovered a possible larger calling, something that could be on everyone's resume – working with paralympians.
“I am so impressed with them,” she said. “They never complain and they always look like they're having fun. Definitely it's not a one-time deal. I love being around these kids.”
John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].
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