Polocrosse Players Get Olympic Training

We have been given exciting news about two of our APA members, who are trained at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO this summer. Alex Guzman and Paige Vallee were recruited for more experience in Pentathlon. Modern Pentathlon is the oldest Olympic Sport.  It consists of 5 phases.  Swimming, Fencing, Riding, Shooting and Running. Alex Guzman has been a junior athlete for the Modern Pentathlon team for nearly 3 years now.  Training for the team allows Alex to get world class coaching at the Olympic Training Center (OTC) in Colorado Springs, CO.  In fact, Alex swims under the same swim coach as Michael Phelps and has even shared swim times in the OTC pool with Phelps.  Alex has represented the sport for the US Olympic Committee in two events.  The one International World Youth Championships was held last summer in Cuba.  Alex was recruited by Rob Stull, who is the Pentathlon Director.  He was scouted during US Pony Club Championships during 2011 at Festival.  The Pentathlon team has fielded most of their top athletes out of the USPC members, very much like how our own Eastern Zone has found some of their top players out of the PC ranks. Paige Vallee was recruited this year.  Brand new to Pentathlon, Paige did have experience in Tetrathlon but that was many years ago.  Due to her skills in riding over show jumping fences, she was asked to bring two of her jumpers down to the World Cup Finals, held in Sarasota, Florida the first week in June.  This gave her the opportunity to ride for the OTC’s riding coach. She was also was able to interview with the other 4 coaches.  She was generously offered a scholarship to spend almost 16 days at the OTC and eat, sleep, train and work out for free in their program. Alex and Paige both competed in a Biathlon and both of them have  successfully qualified for Nationals in Hawaii early next year. How exciting we have such a diverse group of athletes in our membership. Do you have something exciting or unique happening to you?  We want to hear about it! Send your bio to Laura Humphreys so we can showcase our extraordinary members on the website, and in E-News. lhumphreys@americanpolocrosse.org