Ella Gibbs breaking the state record in the 3200 at the middle school state meet last year.
Last year Ella Gibbs attempted something crazy. The Bleckley County 7th grader went for the win in all 3 distance races at the 2021 Middle School State Championships. She won two out of three of them. Not only that, she ran a new meet record in the 1600 and 3200 while running the 4th fastest 800m time ever. This year she is back to defend her two titles and will try to pick up a third in what looks like it will be her swan song of middle school track before she enters high school in the fall, hopefully ready to take that world by storm. She is the favorite for the win in all 3 of her events at the 2022 Middle School State meet , but let's take a look at how she got here.
First of all, let's just enjoy the accomplishments she's had and not put any real expectations on her. I have no idea what she will accomplish this weekend or in high school, assuming she chooses to run. I just want to highlight what she's done and just be in awe of it rather than put pressure on her to perform. When you're an elite athlete, I'm sure it's hard to live up to the expectations you think people have of you. So I want to be clear that I have no expectations, and my biggest takeaway from her that impresses me is the fact that she clearly loves the sport and loves racing and giving her best effort. Just take a look at her profile to see the amount of times she's raced and you can't help but smile that she's been able to give it her all every time. Kudos to you for showing up and running your best Ms. Gibbs, I'm excited to see you do it again this weekend.
So what has she done? She started out by winning all but one race in her 6th grade cross country season. She finished runner up at the 2019 Middle School State meet with a two mile time of 13:04. Then during the outdoor season she was able to put times of 12:21 and 5:58 before Covid shut everything down. But it was her 7th grade year where she really started to emerge as a star. She went undefeated that fall running some solid times but really stood out when she ran 11:24 on the track in late November. Then that spring she put up times to make everybody's jaws drop, culminating with two meet records at the state meet of 10:42 and 5:09. She continued to impress last fall with an undefeated season, but what really set her apart was when she ran at the Hillgrove post season 3200 where she not only ran 10:44, but beat almost all of the best high school runners from the fall, including 3 state champions.
She's undefeated again this spring (except for the one race where she ran with the boys) and comes into the meet with faster times than she came into last year's meet. It'll be interesting to see how she handles the distance triple this year as the favorite. One thing is for sure, she knows how to win races. But as many coaches will tell you, anything can happen at state. Good luck to her and all athletes competing this weekend!
