Sprinter stripped of state title after fire | College News

North Salinas High sophomore Clara Adams ran the quickest time in the ladies’ 400-meter finals at the CIF State Track & Field Finals final weekend.

She crossed the end line .28 seconds forward of her closest competitor.

But Adams isn’t the state champion. She was stripped of that title after she used a fire extinguisher to spray her cleats while on the sector inside the observe moments after the race.

“I was robbed,” Adams, 16, informed The Times shortly after being disqualified from that occasion as nicely the 200 finals, which passed off later in the meet.

Adams stated CIF officers informed her that she was being disqualified because she had been “unsportsmanlike,” but that’s not how she noticed it at all.

“I was having fun,” Adams stated, noting her win in the 400 marked her first state title. “I’d never won something like that before, and they took it away from me. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

She added: “I worked really hard for it and they took it from me, and I don’t know what to do.”

Days later, David Adams, who stated he’s the dash coach at North Salinas, informed The Times his daughter was “doing better” but still making an attempt to cope with all the pieces that unfolded Saturday afternoon at Buchanan High in Clovis.

“Clara’s hurt. She’s hurt right now,” David Adams stated Wednesday. “She’s better today than Saturday. Saturday was fresh. It just happened. It was a shock. She felt numb. They made her sit there and watch while they put those other girls on the podium, knowing Clara’s the fastest 400-meter runner in the state of California.”

Clara Adams has been working competitively since age 6, her father stated. She completed fourth in the 400 at final 12 months’s state meet and gained the occasion with a state-best time of 53.23 at the Central Coast Section championships final month. After posting the highest qualifying time in Friday’s preliminaries, Adams surged forward of Madison Mosby of St. Mary’s Academy in Inglewood to win the race with a time of 53.24.

Immediately afterward, Adams walked over to the wall in entrance of the stands and discovered her father, who reached down and handed her what he described as a “small” fire extinguisher. She then walked back across the observe into the grass, where she sprayed her cleats as if she was placing out a fire — a transfer her father stated was a tribute to former U.S. sprinter Maurice Greene, who equally celebrated his win in the 100 at the 2004 Home Depot Invitational in Carson.

CIF officers apparently weren’t amused and disqualified Adams on the spot, awarding first place to Mosby. According to guidelines established by the National Federation of State High School Assns., “unsporting conduct” is outlined as conduct that contains but isn’t restricted to “disrespectfully addressing an official, any flagrant behavior, intentional contact, taunting, criticizing or using profanity directed toward someone.” The penalty is disqualification from the occasion in which the conduct passed off and additional competitors in the meet.

The CIF didn’t reply to a request for remark from The Times.

According to David Adams, the officers “were really nasty” toward his daughter. They “tugged on her arm,” he stated, “they were screaming in her face. I could hear it from where I was at. I could see it — I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, but they were just really nasty.”

Clara Adams stated she particularly requested the officers to communicate with her father about the disqualification, but they refused.

“They kept telling me, ‘It’s OK,’ and I was telling them, ‘It’s not OK,’ and they didn’t care,” she stated. “They were trying to smile in my face, like them telling me ‘no’ amused them or something.”

David Adams stated the officers would only communicate to North Salinas head coach Alan Green, who declined to communicate to The Times for this story.

“They told him that it was unsportsmanlike conduct,” David Adams stated of the officers’ dialogue with Green. “We were asking for the rule, the specific rule of what she did, and they didn’t really give anything. It was more of a gray area that gives them discretion to pick and choose what they feel is unsportsmanlike conduct.”

Adams disputes that his daughter behaved in a method that could possibly be thought of unsportsmanlike.

“Looking at the film, Clara is nowhere near any opponent,” he stated. “She’s off the track, on the grass. Her opponents are long gone off the track already, so she wasn’t in their face. It was a father-daughter moment. … She did it off the track because she didn’t want to seem disrespectful toward nobody. And they still found a reason to take her title away. They didn’t give her a warning or anything.”

He added that his daughter is a “very humble, really sweet kid.”

“I take responsibility for the situation. I’m taking full responsibility,” he stated. “Clara has run several championship races and won and walked off the track. It’s just weird that she celebrates one time and now people, these strangers, these middle-aged people want to chase after her character?”

Greene, the four-time Olympic medalist who impressed Clara’s celebration, informed KSBW-TV in Salinas that the CIF ought to rethink its determination.

“If [the celebration] was away from everyone and not interfering with anyone, I would say reinstate her,” Greene stated.

David Adams stated he’s making an attempt to make that occur but so far the CIF gained’t return his calls .

“We have an attorney on standby right now,” he stated. “I don’t want to take it there, but I will fight this all the way. As long as I’m breathing I’m gonna fight it. But we’re trying to go through proper channels to give the CIF an opportunity to do the right thing. Having an attorney involved is our last resort, that means we tried everything.”