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Achilles to slow Loudia Laarman down.
Heading into the 2010 World Junior Track and Field Championships in Moncton, N.B., ranked just out of the top-20, the 18-year-old Lethbridge sprinter set out to prove she was faster than where she had been seeded.
And when Laarman sprinted over the finish line, she not only made good on her goal, she cracked the top-10 in the process, taking sixth place in the 4 X 100m relay and seventh in the 100m dash.
“I was pretty pleased with how I did,” said Laarman, having just returned home Monday from the event which ran from July 19-25. “I was kind of hoping for a different result, but I can’t complain about the result I had because I still did better than I think most people expected me to. I knew going in I was ranked in the 20s, so there were a lot of people faster than me. But when it comes down to it, it’s what you’re going to run there.”
However, the time leading up to departing to Moncton wasn’t without a little drama as Laarman injured her Achilles.
“I trained five times a week up in Calgary and did meets,” said Laarman. “A month-and-a-half before I got injured, so I had to cut back on the meets I was going to go to. I missed some pretty important meets that I had been planning on going to.”
The ill-timed injury put Laarman in a position of needing to rest and heal, but still wanting to get some training in before the event.
“I had to stay off of it for a while, but at the same time I didn’t want to not run at all,” said Laarman. “So I decided to not do any meets and do some cross-training and physio and the trial meet in Moncton (about) a week before. So that was my first meet. It was OK. The Achilles itself wasn’t so bad, but just because I hadn’t ran that much my body wasn’t ready.”
Still, it wasn’t enough to keep the Laarman out of the top-10.
The fact she has ample experience at international events probably didn’t hurt either.
“It gets less scary the more you go. You feel like you belong there more,” said Laarman, who has competed at the 2007 World Youth Championships, the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games and the 2009 Pan-Am Juniors.
The strong performance at the Worlds now secured, Laarman won’t have too much time at home as she gets ready for her first year at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
“I just got offered a scholarship this year,” said Laarman, who will study kinesiology. “I think it’ll be intense. I went down there during spring break and the people were really nice. I think it’ll be really fun.”