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Ridgeview freshman stuns field with state record triple jump
| Saturday, May 31 2008 11:39 PM
Last Updated: Sunday, Jun 1 2008 12:05 AM
The most amazing part of Johnny Carter's performance wasn't his impromptu jig after his final triple jump at the CIF Track and Field State Championships on Saturday.
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Ridgeview's Johnny Carter is congratulated by Ryan Swafford, the second-place finisher, after his final jump failed to best Carter's top leap. Carter won the state title Saturday, setting a freshman all-time state record in the process.
Johnny Carter of Ridgeview made big news as he soared to the state championship in the triple jump with a jump of 49 feet, 1 inch.
It wasn't, believe it or not, that the jump won him a state championship as a freshman or that it set a new rookie record for the Central Section.
No, the most amazing part might have come afterwards, when Carter asked his club throwing coach, Kim Jenkins, what the world record in the triple jump was.
"About 61 feet," Jenkins told him (it's actually 18.29 meters, about 60 feet, 1 inch).
Carter's response? "Only 12 more feet to go."
Seems farfetched, but not if you watched Carter, a 15-year-old at Ridgeview High, land his winning 49-1 jump at Falcon Stadium.
"I thought about it all night long," Carter said. "I couldn't get to sleep. I kept thinking, 'I know what I've got to do tomorrow.' Thought about it, and it came true."
The freshman, who entered the event with the top seed mark in the state, struggled with nerves in Friday's preliminaries but appeared to be past that problem for the finals. He landed a 48-0 -- just three inches off his old personal record -- to get within 3.75 inches of the lead, held by Vista Murrieta's Ryan Swafford.
That was still the margin before Carter's final jump. He needed a new PR.
"I was thinking to myself, 'If I don't get this, it's over,'" Carter said. "When I hit the dirt, I said 'Yes!'"
Freshman state champions are the stuff legends are made of, of course. It puts Carter in the same category as very few others, among them Olympic great Marion Jones.
Jenkins used Fresno-San Joaquin Memorial jumper David Tucker, who had held the section's freshman record from 1968 until Saturday night, as an example.
"(Tucker) went on to do big things, national marks and whatnot," Jenkins said. "At least now Johnny's surpassed that."
For now, Carter is going to enjoy Saturday night's performance.
"I feel blessed," Carter said, clutching his gold medal. "And this, this feels really good."
Ridgeview finished 1-3 in the event, with senior Chris Kelly capping his career with a third-place finish. It was a sweet finish for him after he missed making the finals by less than an inch as a junior.
"I told (Carter) in the beginning that we had to take top three, both of us," said Kelly, who jumped 47-11. "I'm happy for him, and I'm happy I placed."
Even Kelly could only watch as Carter -- who had to pull up his grades at the start of the semester just to be eligible for track -- came from the frosh/soph team to the top of the state podium in only his second year of jumping.
"He jumped up, and I said, 'OK, that must be 48-4 or better,'" Jenkins said. "They flipped up a 49, and I thought, 'Oh my God, he did it.'"