Three young New Yorkers – Aisling Cuffe, Jen Clayton and Whitney Fountain – have been entered into this week’s World Juniors in Canada as members of the U.S. team as added entries. They all finished in third place in their respective events at the U.S. Juniors qualifying meet last month in Iowa.
The U.S. has entered three athletes in each of the affected events – Cuffe (Cornwall Central) in the 3,000, Clayton (Suffern) in the long jump, Fountain (Columbus, NYC) in the heptathlon. It is believed that each nation must reduce its final entries to two athletes per event by the time of final declarations.
Competition, in Moncton, New Brunswick, begins on today.
In the case of Cuffe, she is entered along with Jordan Hasay and Emily Sisson, but Hasay is also entered in the 1,500 and Sisson in the 5,000. One of the other longjumpers, Andrea Geubelle, is also in the triple jump.
Cuffe has a year remaining in high school, while Clayton is headed to LSU and Fountain to Clemson.
- Jack Pfeifer