MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — For most athletes, winning a state championship in high school is as good as it gets.
Chinne Okoronkwo isn’t most athletes.
The Mountlake Terrace junior is well on her way to becoming the type of athlete most of us only dream to be. Okoronkwo has won back-to-back state triple jump championships and added a long jump state championship as a sophomore. Her dominance against competition in Washington State is impressive, but it doesn’t begin to tell the story. Okoronkwo has also established herself as one of the best jumpers in the country.
She is currently ranked third nationally in the triple jump by www.dyestat.com, a website devoted to high school track and field, and is less than two weeks removed from placing third in both the long jump and the triple jump at the New Balance Indoor Nationals, a competition in New York City that features many of the best high school track athletes in the country.
“She’s a very gifted young lady,” Mountlake Terrace head coach Russ Vincent said. “As you go through the years you can see that she’s a hard worker and she loves her sport. You combine those things and it creates motivation. With the talent that is there it keeps adding to the snowball effect going on. I think that’s what’s happened with her.
“Her aspirations are very big.”
Okoronkwo has come a long way from her freshman year of high school when she said all she wanted to do was win the state championship in the triple jump. She accomplished her goal, but continued success has forced her, and her coach, to dream bigger. Personal bests, state records, national championships — even the Olympics, it seems nothing is off the table.
“I know the Olympics is clearly her ultimate goal,” Vincent said.
With all of her success in the long jump and triple jump, one championship has eluded Okoronkwo in her first two years of high school. She’s placed second at the 3A state meet in the pole vault each of the past two seasons.
“Last year, I didn’t focus on pole vault too much,” Okoronkwo said. “I barely practiced with it. I just didn’t find anything that really worked for me last year. This year, I’m going to focus a little bit more on pole vault so I can hopefully win that title, finally.”
Most of Okoronkwo’s time was dedicated to the triple jump and the long jump last season, and it paid off with a state championship in both events. This season, she wants all three.
She wouldn’t be the first athlete to win three state championships in the same season, but Vincent said if she’s able to pull it off it would still be historic.
“It would be tough to find an athlete in state history to do such an awkward combination,” he said. “Long (jump) and triple (jump), that double is pretty simple. But all of the sudden when you add a unique event like the pole vault, I think she’d go down as one of the most unique triple (winners) in history.”
Pole vault was where Okoronkwo’s track career started. It was a natural transition after years as a gymnast. Triple jump, though, was the event that changed everything.
“I just ended up loving triple jump,” Okoronkwo said. “That’s what I wanted to do every single day.”
It also might be the event where Okoronkwo is the most naturally gifted. She came into high school with marks over 39 feet. In two years, she has increased that number to 41 feet, 10 inches. She set that personal best distance at nationals less than two weeks ago.
As much as Okoronkwo has improved in the triple jump, Vincent said the degree of improvement has been even more significant in the long jump. She entered into high school jumping around 17 feet, but Vincent thinks 21 feet is a possibility this season, which would almost certainly mean another state championship in that event as well — pretty impressive for someone that uses the long jump as a training event.
“Long jump isn’t really my thing,” Okoronkwo said. “I don’t count it as one of my main events because I use it as cross-training for triple jump. The better I can long jump the better the last phase of my triple jump will be. With long jump I just want to go out there and have fun, but of course you want to do well.”
Vincent has coached at Mountlake Terrace for the past 11 years and has spent 36 years in coaching. He said Okoronkwo ranks up there with the best athletes he’s ever had.
“As we go back through the history of Mountlake Terrace High School, she’s definitely one of the greatest athletes ever to enter this school,” Vincent said. “She will leave with that type of legacy.”
Vincent thinks she will leave with more than that. With nearly two full track seasons remaining before she graduates, he expects records to fall.
“I fully expect her, by the time she’s done, to hold state records, in any classification you want to talk about, in the long (jump), triple (jump) and somehow, if we can get time in the (pole) vault to get her the practice while working long and triple, she has the potential to be the all-time best in the vault too,” Vincent said.
“She’s driven from within and for perfection.”
Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.
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