{"id":2133,"date":"2008-06-21T12:49:49","date_gmt":"2008-06-21T16:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/essportscouncil.org\/liberty-tour\/?p=2133"},"modified":"2012-01-25T13:02:03","modified_gmt":"2012-01-25T18:02:03","slug":"the-rise-of-adirondack-champions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/essportscouncil.org\/liberty-tour\/post\/the-rise-of-adirondack-champions\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of Adirondack Champions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It was the perfect day for championship competition!\u00a0 It was not too hot, not too humid,\u00a0and perfectly sunny,.\u00a0 It was one of those days you dream of for a competition such as this.\u00a0 Even the temporary lack of power, didn’t taint this wonderful day.\u00a0 It was a day filled with excitement, competition and fun, as 273\u00a0young athletes\u00a0began a quest\u00a0to qualify for the Region 1 Junior Olympics, set for July 11th – 13th at Icahn Stadium in NYC, where Usain Bolt (the Lightning Bolt) set the 100m record at 9.72 seconds just a couple of weeks earlier.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “We have been attending the Junior Olympics for the last six years and this one was the best yet. My children do the throwing and jumping events and everything ran very smooth. We did not see any upset parents or athletes all day. The officials did a great job. Thank you for running such a big event so efficiently. You are doing a great job with these meets.”, said Karen Luzinas from Averill Park, the host site for the 2008 Adirondack Junior Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As records are made to be broken, there was no exception again for this\u00a0championship meet.\u00a0\u00a0Nearly 60 records fell as the next generation of athletes fights to stake a claim to being the best.\u00a0 Bernadette Gaffney\u00a0(Pictured Above), from the Kingston Tigers, came prepared to leave her mark, as she set a new record in the Young Women’s 200m (shown above) with a time of 27.36.\u00a0 She also set a new Young Women’s Triple Jump standard with a leap of 10.25m.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Adirondack Junior Olympic Championships are open to youth athletes from the ages of 6 – 18.\u00a0 Anyone that places in the top six (6) finishers in each event is entitled to attend the Region 1 JO’s.\u00a0 Those athletes that finish in the top three (3) spots at the Region 1 JO’s, will advance to the National JO’s in Omaha, NE, July 22nd – 27th.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The final stop of the Empire State Liberty Tour Track & Field Series will be the Independence Invitational, which will be held Sunday June 29th at the University @ Albany.\u00a0\u00a0Field Events kick off at 1:00 pm, with\u00a0the track events begin at 1:15 pm.\u00a0 If you have not\u00a0yet been to a Liberty Tour meet, be sure to register for this event, or you will have to wait until 2009!\u00a0 For more exciting photos (courtesy of Capital\u00a0District Sports Photography) and a brief overview of some of the records broken, scroll down to catch a glimpse.\u00a0\u00a0To view all of the results from\u00a0any of the Liberty Tour meets, just click on\u00a0“Results”, then click the meet from the year you are interested in viewing.\n\t\t