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9-year-old athlete wins gold medal in junior track and field competition

XENIA, Ohio — For a young athlete from Xenia, it’s gold, after competing in the Navy Junior Olympics Track and Field Championship in Jacksonville, Florida.

Aiden Ashcraft is 9 years old and during his very first time competing at nationals, he jumped 14 feet and 8 and half inches in the long jump and took home a gold medal.

Ashcraft said, “I wasn’t expecting to win gold.”

Aiden said competing at nationals was, “Scary because that was my first year there.”

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His mom, Ashley Howard, said she knew he was a natural after watching him excel in football and basketball.

“We kind of knew long jump would be his thing because basketball and I watch him jump on everything,” she said.

Like for many athletes, the COVID shutdown presented many challenges for Aiden, including the cancellation of the peewee football season he participates in.

Howard said, “He was getting bored and not being able to go outside and play with everybody was getting kind of antsy for him.”

Track was also cancelled last year, due to COVID, and Aiden’s coach said that made this season even more exciting for the athletes.

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Lauren Jones, coach at Xenia Track Club, said, “It’s encouraging to see them go from coming straight from the pandemic into the end of the season and taking them all the way to nationals.”

The track club is taking precautions this season to make sure everyone could compete.

“Outdoors, we don’t have to wear masks. So outdoors we just tried to keep them a little bit more separate, running in everyone other one sometimes. The cool down we’d have them spread out into a circle, so they weren’t as close together,” Jones said.

Now, with the Delta variant Jones is planning accordingly for the upcoming track season and hoping for the best.

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