German Finishes Third Nationally In Elite Meet

Isabel German at the Adidas Indoor National Meet in Pole Vault. Photo - Chris German, CTG Photography

Justin Scott - Sports Reporter

4/4/2024

In Atlanta, Georgia, you can find Atlanta Track Club Elite. It’s a professional running group with full Adidas partnerships where runners with Olympic aspirations live and train. There you can find LHS Class of 2014 graduate Rachael Walters, who has been with the club since 2019 following a successful career at Grand Valley State. It’s one of many opportunities for elite track & field athletes after college.

Adidas also sponsors the Adidas Indoor Nationals Meet, an elite USA Track & Field sanctioned competition open to high schoolers who hit certain qualifications. One of those student-athletes was LHS junior Isabel German, who competed in the event on March 15th with other elite track & field competitors. To qualify for this meet in the National Elite division, athletes have to hit a standard mark of 11’ or qualify for your state's indoor final meet during this year's indoor track season, Isabel hit both of these marks to qualify. 

After leaving at 3:00am on Thursday and a 15-hour drive, Isabel and family, including her dad Chris who is a coach with the Lowell Track program, arrived at the Virginia Beach Sports Center.

Going into the meet Isabel was seeded 14th and rose above that seeding to finish 3rd out of 64 girls. "The top four girls all cleared the 11’ 11 1/2” and all missed at the following height of 12’ 5 1/2”. When this happens they look back at previous heights cleared and see who cleared them with the least amount of misses to break the tie," Coach German said.

It was a great result for Isabel heading into the spring school season.

For comparison, last year’s state champion in the pole vault was Brooke Bowers of Forest Hills Central, with a 12’ 3” vault. German will certainly be among the contenders this year. She cleared 12 feet last summer, and last year made the state meet for the first time, finishing 14th in both pole vault and the 400m.

German is poised to break the school record in pole vault this year, her highest score as a Red Arrow is 11’ 6”, two inches short of LHS Class of 2009 graduate Richelle Kimble at 11’ 8”. She was all-conference her first two years of track, also earning all-regional honors both years as well.

You can see Isabel and the rest of Lowell Track & Field compete this spring. Lowell has four home events in April, including the Kathy Talus Memorial Invitational on April 20th.