Paralympians to compete in Mt. SAC relays

From Chain Ring Sports News:

WALNUT, Calif. – Twenty-nine Paralympic athletes, including eight track & field medalists from the 2008 Paralympic Games, will compete at the upcoming 2009 Mt. SAC Relays in Walnut, Calif., April 17-18.

The Paralympic events will be broken into divisions for amputee, visually-impaired and wheelchair track athletes in the 100 and 800m distances.

Among the Paralympic athletes competing are Iraq war veterans Kortney Clemons (Little Rock, Miss.) (pictured) and Sergeant Jerrod Fields (Chicago, Ill.), both amputees as the result of injuries they sustained while serving in Iraq with the U.S. Army.

Clemons and Fields will both compete in the 100m along with the 2008 Paralympic Games silver medalist Jerome Singleton (Irmo, S.C.).

In the wheelchair division, five-time 2008 Paralympic medalist Jessica Galli (Savoy, Ill.), four-time 2008 Paralympic medalist Tatyana McFadden (Clarksville, Md.) and two-time 2008 Paralympic medalist Anjali Forber-Pratt (Natick, Mass.) will compete in the women’s 800m.

In the men’s visually-impaired division, Josiah Jamison (Vance, S.C.), 2008 Paralympic Games gold medalist, and Elexis Gillette (Raleigh, N.C.) will compete in the 100m, along with their respective guide runners, Jerome Avery (Lemoore, Calif.) and Wes Williams (Visalia, Calif.).

“Mt. SAC is a top-rate competition, so we’re thrilled that we’re going to have a Paralympic presence there,” said Cathy Sellers, Assoc. Dir. of High Performance, U.S. Paralympics Track & Field. “Having Paralympic athletes compete alongside Olympic-caliber athletes pushes the intensity of competition, and as a result, we hope to see some groundbreaking performances come out of Mt. SAC.”

The visually-impaired athletes will compete in the 100m on Friday, April 17, followed by the wheelchair racers in the 800m. On Saturday, April 18, the amputee division will compete in the 100m.