The Final Chapter In The Bantam Girl Long Jump Saga
For many weeks now, okay MONTHs we waited for the news that Lauren had indeed earned her rightful place in the 2009 finals with a gold medal jump of 14′-10.5″ she jump her PR and good enough for a first place finish. As you know in the beginning this was in serious questioned but after many months it was announce to our family via telephone conversation with Youth National Chair Lionel Leach that she would be receiving it some time in early December….. Well that didn’t happen ..I finally e-mailed Mr.Leach and he said he wanted to give her it personally when that didn’t happen (we said just forget, it just send it to us….That didn’t happen. Then I had to call AGAIN and request to speak to the youth liaison and she was very kind and finally on March 4th just over 8 months from the time she earned the medal we received it.
Lauren’s room waiting for the medal
I took it with me when I went to picked her up from school, she was sooooo excited and glad it was finally here. That medal takes it rightful place next to the two others she earned in the 100m and 200m. The Williams family would like to extend a warm Thanks for all your support over the months of fighting to get this situation cleared up.
I have to say not giving her the medal was the first, as my niece would say GI-NORMOUS mistake in the wake of an obvious mistake by the officials then it was compounded by a lack of proper customer service and response on the part of the powers that be at USATF,then when they were finally forced to look at the evidence they instead of keeping us in the loop with the progress and information again said nothing until I wrote more e-mails requesting what was going on..I realize things take time but up until last 2 weeks I had to make all the initial contact to get things moving on our behave…
Yes the medal was going to get here but probably not until, who knows April . Lionel Leach wanted to give it to her personally..That was a nice thought except he never told us until I asked where was the medal? Then he couldn’t exactly give a date when that would happen so in the end Henry said just send the medal. So we have the medal now, see the picture below. I am thankful that somehow the right thing was done against what seemed to be at the time impossible odds. Our local USATF representativeswere very supportive and I think this helped a great deal sort all of this out. In the end the pictures told the truth even though the officials didn’t.
Now I like to know when Elite Youth will properly rank her as Number 1# and remove the 16 ft jump? Like with Lionel I have respectfully have written many e-mails the (latest last week) with the proper links that prove Lauren deserves the spot at the top. I think they don’t really care at this point although that is the purpose of their web site to post the youth ranking correctly and accurately isn’t it?
Elite Youth National Rankings state on the site:
Problem) I do not see a performance that I know occured at a meet.
Resolution) Give us the information on the performance. Name, mark, event and a link to the meet on the web.
If you see the link already on our Ranking Home page, let us know that. Sometimes, these links are posted
while the performances are still being loaded. If that is the case, the next refresh will pick it up but
let us know just in case we missed the link.Problem) I see a performance that I know is not right.(the whole nation knows isn’t right)
Resolution tell us the division and event. ( I did that) The name may not be required if it
is obvious. (It was ) For example, somtimes performances in feet and inches are labled meters.
A high jump of 5’5 may be printed 5.5m indicating meters and is not correct. It would be converted to over 16 feet if not caught.
Let us know, and we’ll correct it.( But They haven’t?????wonder why?)
HUMMMMMM I did all of that. More than a few times over the course of the past 6 months no response. Not sure what to think now??? I guess when you have a captive audience with no competition you can provide less than accurate times and jumps? Well all of America Youth track fans that care to know, know the truth and Lauren’s a midget now so we have to move on. Their rankings are just in error. No big deal now, but in the future someone might use this sight for a reference not knowing that some of the marks are incorrect. I can’t believe Lauren’s marks are the only mistake that has gone uncorrected after proof has been documented and sent.
I use EY as a general reference, like most youth track people do but we all know they are not the gold standard of posted rankings just what we have for now. If you want to ask them for yourself click here
Onward 2010 Outdoor Track and Field Season 2009 is really history finally……
Great to see that even though the wheels of justice grind slowly, they do still grind. Congratulations to her on an incredible three national medals, and hopefully other parents and coaches won’t be afraid to follow the proper protocal to resolve their questions.
Congratulations to Lauren!
I really DO hope a lesson was learned from this. Our kids deserve our best efforts in recording marks and recognizing mistakes when they happen. If we want our children to admit when they are wrong and learn from their mistakes, we have to do the same thing.
I posted last year that I saw all sorts of shinanegans in the pits. Trackmom, i’d love to see an article with suggestions of how to move forward and make sure events like the Long Jump are as professional as possible. I have some suggestions, what do you think?
1. No parents/coaches in the pit [except for the subs]. Too many people make things confusing. The only people who should be in the pit should be the officials running the event. That said, who NEEDS to be there? foul judge, pit groomer, head official [writing marks] and one other to keep an eye on the athletes. Any more and peole’s attention starts to wander.
2.one flight on the field at a time. Again too many kids=confusion
any thing else?
Yes I hope this will encourage parents and coaches to know the rules ahead of time so they can be the best advocate for thier athlete or child. There were so many things we just didn’t understand about the formal protest in NC. From now on we will bring our protest money in cash with us to the track just in case LOL.
Thanks for your support and well wishes
I am so glad this FINALLY got all straightened out, but I still can’t believe it took almost a year! Certainly makes me think twice about entering the USATF JO…
Jennifer in all fairness to USATF they do run a fine meet but the official that made a poor call didn’twant to admit it and the wheels just had to turn slowly. The USATF JO’s is a high quality meet and well worth the trip to compete.