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Chmielewski vaults over injuries into nationals



By: Dave Gurney, Sports Writer 06/09/2005

Sports clichés always echo the same sentiment, how persistence and grit are measured in sweat and tears. How a true athlete buries the physical pain and agony inside for a dauntless, daring exhibition of heart and determination.
But how else do you describe an athlete who, after breaking a vertebrae, was still able to battle the physical and psychological elements to qualify for her third trip to the NCAA Championships in as many years?
Laura Chmielewski, a 2001 graduate of South Brunswick High School and former All-State and All-American in the pole vault, cleared a height of 12-8¾ during the NCAA East Regional Championship in the Bronx, N.Y. on May 27 to qualify for her third career NCAA bid.
The Northeastern University junior edged University of Florida senior Chelo Canino to claim the fifth and final slot for the NCAA Championships, which will be held June 8-11 in Sacramento, Cal.
"The good thing about Laura is that she's a tough competitor," Northeastern coach Sherman Hart said. "Once we got into a jump off I knew she'd win. We knew that she had to place in the top five and to get herself in.
"The thing I like about Laura was that she was able to compose herself and perform. She really went after it and attacked it."
She didn't just attack it, she expected it to happen.
"The whole day I was tired and not feeling very good at all," Chmielewski said. "I had jumped higher than every girl there and when I missed the jump at 10, I was upset. But I knew that if there were 10 girls jumping for that final spot, I knew they couldn't take it away from me."
The performance gave Chmielewski another shot at earning All-American honors. She will look to duplicate or better last year's feat of placing sixth in the NCAA Championships, when she became Northeastern's first All-American in women's track and field since 1996.
After battling various nicks and injuries over the past season, the prime obstacle standing in Chmielewski's way will be her physical condition, especially with the compression fracture to her vertebrae.
"This season has been tough for her because she's had so many injuries," Northeastern assistant coach Brenner Abbott said. "She has been consistent and has battled through the injuries, but she hasn't been 100 percent this season - more like 80 percent. Then again, a lot of people would like to have the ability to get to the NCAA's at 80 percent."
Chmielewski has been told that all she can do is take a little time off and rest, that nothing can really heal or correct the injury at this point. If the condition, which bothers her regularly when competing, were to worsen, then surgery would be an option.
Still, she is content on making a last significant push on the national scale this season before taking the summer off to rest and recuperate.
"I think if I just stay clean and jump what I can jump, I'll be fine," Chmielewski said. "I'd love to jump 14 feet, but I don't know if my body can do that. If I can jump 13 feet, nine inches, it should be good enough to get me All-American."
"I'm confident Laura is going to get into the top eight and be an All-American again," Hart said. "She's going to be a tough person to beat. I think she has the potential to win the whole thing."
As confident as the coaching staff and Chmielewski are heading into the championships, it was only three years ago that Chmielewski's future in track and field appeared to be in doubt.
Chmielewski originally attended Rutgers, setting a school indoor record and meet record of 12-0 when she won the pole vault at the Husky Invitational in Boston.
But her development had stalled under the tutelage of the Rutgers staff and the fun she once had in the sport had evaporated. Inevitably, she gave up on college track.
"I loved Rutgersâ€â€

http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/a ... mielewski/

Vaulting is a natural fit for Chmielewski
By Susan Bickelhaupt, Globe Staff | May 27, 2005
Flying through the air seems to come naturally for Laura Chmielewski.

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Growing up, she was an elite gymnast, doing somersaults on the balance beam, bounding over the vault, and swinging from the uneven bars. She quit gymnastics at 13, but has not quit sailing through the air.

Now Chmielewski, 21, a junior at Northeastern, has become arguably the best women's pole vaulter in New England. She holds all the Northeastern, America East, and New England pole vault records, and finished sixth in the NCAA indoor championship last season to earn All-America honors with a vault of 13 feet 9 1/4 inches.

Today she'll compete in the NCAA East regional in New York and if she finishes in the top five, she will advance to the NCAA championship in two weeks.

''I'm really ready," she said. ''I don't think there's a girl in this region who jumps higher than I can."

Chmielewski came to pole vaulting when it was just starting to make the national scene in 1998 and she was rethinking gymnastics (she had been facing the prospect of surgery for a shoulder injury). Women's pole vault wasn't admitted to the Olympics until 2000, and it had just become part of the NCAA championship in 1998.

''Gymnastics was taking a toll on my body," said Chmielewski, who started gymnastics when she was 7. ''I thought I needed to take a break, and figured I could always come back to gymnastics. I was emotionally and mentally drained, having done it for so long."

Chmielewski looked around for another sport. Her father suggested pole vaulting, something her older brother had done. She protested, telling her father that ''girls can't do it," and her brother agreed.

But that is what spurred her on.

''So I decided to show my big brother up," she said. ''I started at the end of my sophomore year, and I just fell in love with it."

Since there were no other girls vaulting, she was on the boys' team. Her teammates were helpful and encouraging, she said.

''The other teams would say, 'Oh, isn't that cute?' " she said. ''Then I would beat them and they wouldn't think I was so cute.

''But it was really cool."

She graduated from South Brunswick High in New Jersey as an all-state selection and an All-American in track and field, and set a school record of 11-9.

By her senior year, Chmielewski said she was recruited by virtually ''every Division 1 school in the country to do track."

She settled on Rutgers, because it was close to her family in Monmouth, N.J. She set a school and meet record of 12 feet indoors at the Husky Invitational her freshman year. But she felt like she had reached a plateau and decided to put away her pole.

''Their coach is an excellent coach and great guy, but he really didn't have what I needed for a pole vault coach," she said. ''He had never done it, and it's such an emotional event, you have to feel it, you have to understand it to coach it."

She stayed in school her sophomore year, but decided she was through with pole vaulting. Until that summer, when a former American record-holder told her ''it was the worst decision you could make."

She decided to transfer to Northeastern, where Brenner Abbott, the pole vaulting coach, is a former vaulter. Abbott met Chmielewski at a track camp one summer, and saw her potential.

''She had a really rough [time], but when I met her, I saw that she loved to jump," he said.

During her first season at NU, in 2003-04, Chmielewski set school indoor and outdoor records with jumps of 12-9 1/2 and 13-5 3/4, respectively. She cleared 13-1 1/2 to win and set the meet record at the America East outdoor championship, and placed second at the ECAC championship.

Her first major win in a national class meet came at the Tyson Invitational in February at the University of Arkansas with a then-NU record of 13-6 1/2. She bested that later in the season with her jump of 13-9 1/4 at the NCAA indoor championship.

Chmielewski, who has a compressed vertebra, will take a break from jumping this summer.

Chmielewski said she's willing to rest if it means a shot at the next Olympics.

''There's nothing that's going to keep me from going to China in 2008."