Brookline girl hopes to soar to new heights

ORONO – Her name is Krista Limbo. She is from the Boston, Mass., suburb of Brookline, where she is a freshman in high school.

Come Sunday, the final day of the Regional Junior Olympic Championships at the University of Maine here, she will make regional championship history.

About 1,000 boys and girls from the Northeast are competing in the three-day meet that began at noon Friday.

Limbo’s achievement will not occur in the course of her regular event – the intermediate girls heptathlon – at which she excels.

Krista Limbo will make her mark when she becomes the first girl to compete in the U.S.A. Track and Field Association’s regional intermediate boys pole vault.

Meet director Rolland Ranson, an assistant Maine track coach, confirmed Friday that Krista will be allowed to compete in the pole vault. Permission has been granted by the USATFA governing body for her to participate.

Should Limbo finish as one of the top three in that competition, she would become eligible for the nationals.

However, since her vaults have been in the 8-foot range, she is not expected to place that high, Ranson said.

Krista, a bubbly, friendly young lady who will spend five weeks this summer in Kenya as part of an international camper exchange, is a most unlikely candidate to lead the charge for female equity in amateur track and field.

In fact, the thought that she might be doing so does not appear to be uppermost in her mind.

It was obvious, talking with Krista, that her only concern is to be allowed to do what she knows she is able to do. It is that simple.

Of all the track and field events, the pole vault is her favorite.

“It’s just the best,” she said of the thrill of whipping high over a bar with the aid of a pole. “People seem to be enthusiastic about me doing it.”

It was Akil Hooper, Brookline High School’s 1994 Athlete of the Year, who inspired Krista to try the event.

Back when she was a sixth-grader, she saw him fly over the pole.

“It looked like so much fun,” she said of watching the three-sport star who will take his academic and athletic talents to the University of California-Berkeley next year. “I just wanted to do it.”

Akil Hooper is an unlikely role model for Krista.

He already has one shadow at these meets – his younger brother and Krista’s classmate, Khalil, who is determined to break the records set by Akil.

But at Orono on Friday, they were Akil’s shadows. The lineup was the big brother, the little brother and the pony-tailed girl who wants to be where the boys are, cheering each aother on, checking each other’s scores and holding each other’s starting blocks for the sprints.

That’s sort of like it was this spring when Krista competed for the high school boys track team – in the pole vault. Brookline coach Rick Kates said Limbo is one of the first female pole vaulters in Massachusetts.

A few high school and college coaches are working with girls and women in this event that is gaining in international popularity.

Ranson said the women’s world record is 13-feet, 9-inches, while the U.S. girls record is around 11 feet.

As a heptathlete, “Krista is one of the best in New England,” Kates said. She set a Brookline school record this year with 3,167 points for the seven track and field events.

“But she really wants to do the pole vault,” Kates added. “She was scored with the boys in the state meet to help set a school record.”

Driving to Orono with the Hoopers and her coach for this meet, Krista asked Kates why girls are allowed to compete in only the seven-event heptathlon, and not the 10-event decathlon like the boys.

“I said I didn’t know the answer to that one, and maybe she should ask,” Kates said.

It is my bet that Krista Limbo will ask.