Clay Williams
Clay Williams is the Sports Director for Action 4 News.
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Winning the National High School Outdoor Race Walk Championship was a great feat
GREENSBORO, NC --
for Geraldo Flores of Pharr and specially since he missed his flight and almost
didn't arrive on time at the Greensboro North Carolina A&T University stadium.
Fortunately, he was able to get an early 6:00 AM flight out of San Antonio the
following day.
The two time High School All-American incoming Junior at PSJA Southwest High
School in Pharr earned his third High School All-American award and is bringing
back a beautiful first place gold ring awarded to the National champion. He is
counting his blessings since, besides almost not arriving on time, he was able
to overcome a last minute surge by Maine's top high school race walker, Benjamin
Kates. Geraldo had taken the lead at the beginning of the race, walking his
first lap in a blistering time of one minute forty-five seconds. He gradually
increased his lead and was walking comfortably more than twenty-five meters
ahead when Benjamin started sprinting two hundred meters from the finish
line. Benjamin caught Geraldo flat footed and came shoulder to shoulder with him
one hundred meters from the finish line. Fortunatly, he had already exhausted
his reserves and Geraldo was able to cross the finish line four seconds ahead
Benjamin.
This is the second time that a South Texas Walking Club member has beaten a top
Maine race walker to win this championship. The first was Roberto Vergara of
Edinburg back in 2005 when he set a new high school freshman meet record of
7:07 which is still in the record books. Roberto and his twin brother Ricardo
were two of the top high school race walkers in the country during that time.
They earned full scholarships to attend Lindsey Wilson College in Kentucky from
which they graduated this month. Geraldo plans to to follow their footsteps and
earn a full scholarship of his own.
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