Gatorade National Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year: Anna Jelmini

      

BAKERSFIELD, Calif., June 18 /PRNewswire/ -- In its third decade of honoring the nation's best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company, in partnership with ESPN RISE, today announced senior thrower Anna Jelmini of Shafter High School (Shafter, Calif.) as its 2008-09 Gatorade National Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year.

Of the 22 student-athletes ever to win Gatorade National Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year honors, 14 hail from the state ofCalifornia. Jelmini joins Melisa Weis (1989-90, Bakersfield HS) as the only other high school girls track & field athlete from theBakersfield area to earn Gatorade National Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year honors.

The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field, distinguishes Jelmini as the nation's best high school girls track & field athlete. A national advisory board comprised of sportswriters and sport-specific experts from around the country helped select Jelmini from more than 447,000 high school girls track & field athletes nationwide. Jelmini is now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade Female High School Athlete of the Year award, to be presented at a special afternoon ceremony prior to The ESPY Awards in July.

The 5-foot-9 senior thrower broke the national prep record this spring by launching the discus 190 feet, 3 inches at the California Interscholastic Federation Central Section Sequoia Sierra Area Meet in May. The 2008 USA Junior Outdoor Track & Field Championships discus gold medalist, Jelmini also put the shot 54 feet, 4.75 inches at the CIF area meet, which ranked as the nation's best prep performance of 2009 and the No. 2 throw all-time among American girls prep competitors at the time of her selection. She doubled in the discus and shot put events at the CIF State Track and Field Championships earlier this month, setting the state record in each apparatus (186-9 and 53-8, respectively) and becoming the first girls thrower inCalifornia history to win both events in consecutive years. The Generals finished fourth in the state as a team. A participant in last summer's 2008 IAAF World Junior Championships inPoland, where she reached the discus event finals, Jelmini finished 19th at the 2008 USA Track & Field Olympic Team Trials last July.

Jelmini has maintained a 3.83 core-academic GPA in the classroom. An active member of the St. Francis Catholic Church community, she has volunteered locally on behalf of the U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation and in association with an elementary school literacy-outreach program. Jelmini has also donated her time to an area junior high school library renovation project, as well as multiple food drives. As Shafter High's Associated Student Body Commissioner of Girls Athletics, Jelmini has been a tireless fundraising booster for the Generals' athletic program, which is heavily privately funded.

"For an athlete to set one national record and be within a whisper of another is unheard of in prep outdoor track and field," said Steve Underwood, News Editor for dyestat.com. "But Anna Jelmini has done just that in the shot and discus. It's been exciting that she's captured the discus record. Her four-foot improvement in the shot, however, has really wowed the track community and set her apart as probably the greatest combo thrower ever, of either gender."

Jelmini has signed a National Letter of Intent to compete in track and field on scholarship at Arizona State University this fall.

"Without question, Anna is deserving of recognition as the nation's best high school girls track & field athlete based on her statistics on the field and the impact her play had on Shafter's success," said Gatorade Senior Vice President of Sports Marketing Jeff Urban. "But she is also a shining example to peers and aspiring young players of what a leader and a student-athlete should be. She represents everything we hope for in a Gatorade Player of the Year recipient."

The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in theDistrict of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by ESPN RISE, which works with top sport-specific experts and a media advisory board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.

Former notable Gatorade National Players of the Year include:

    --  Reigning 200-meter world champion Allyson Felix
    --  2004 Athens Olympic Games 4-x-400-meter gold medalist Monique Henderson
    --  2006 IAAF World Athlete of the Year and 400-meter American record-holder
        Sanya Richards
    --  NFL all-time leading rusher Emmitt Smith
    --  Softball Olympic gold medalist Cat Osterman
    --  Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Peyton Manning
    --  Kansas City Royals ace Zach Grienke

    --  WNBA all-time leading scorer and rebounder Lisa Leslie

For more on the Gatorade Player of the Year program, including nomination information and lists of past winners and future announcement dates, visit gatorade.com/playeroftheyear.

        ALL-TIME GATORADE NATIONAL GIRLS TRACK & FIELD ATHLETES OF THE YEAR

    YEAR      NAME               HIGH SCHOOL                 STATUS

    2008-09   Anna Jelmini       Shafter HS/Shafter, CA      High School
                                                             Senior

    2007-08   Chanelle Price     Easton Area HS/Easton, PA   Univ. of
                                                             Tennessee

    2006-07   Emily Pendleton    Woodmore HS/Elmore, OH      Univ. of
                                                             Michigan

    2005-06   Bianca Knight      Ridgeland/Ridgeland, MS     Univ. of Texas

    2004-05   Brittany Daniels   Merrill F. West/Tracy, CA   Univ. of
                                                             Tennessee

    2003-04   Shalonda Solomon   Long Beach Poly/            Univ. of South
                                 Englewood, CA               Carolina

    2002-03   Allyson Felix      Los Angeles Baptist/        USA Track &
                                 North Hills, CA             Field/adidas

    2001-02   Sanya Richards     St. Thomas Aquinas/         USA Track &
                                 Ft. Lauderdale, FL          Field/Nike

    2000-01   Ychlindria Spears  Luling/Luling, TX           Univ. of Texas
                                                             Grad.

    1999-00   Monique Henderson  Samuel FB Morse/            USA Track &
                                 San Diego, CA               Field/Reebok

    1998-99   Stacy Martin       Edgewood/Ellettsville, IN   Auburn Grad.

    1997-98   Angela Williams    Chino/Chino, CA             USA Track &
                                                             Field/Nike

    1996-97   Kinshasa Davis     Woodrow Wilson/             USC Grad.
                                 Long Beach, CA

    1995-96   Kim Mortensen      Thousand Oaks/              UCLA Grad.
                                 Thousand Oaks, CA

    1994-95   Joanna Hayes       J.W. North/Riverside, CA    USA Track &
                                                             Field/Nike

    1993-94   Suzy Powell        Thomas Downey/Modesto, CA   USA Track &
                                                             Field/Asics

    1992-93   Marion Jones       Thousand Oaks/              USA Track &
                                 Thousand Oaks, CA           Field/Nike

    1991-92   Marion Jones       Thousand Oaks/              USA Track &
                                 Thousand Oaks, CA           Field/Nike

    1990-91   Marion Jones       Rio Mesa/Oxnard, CA         USA Track &
                                                             Field/Nike

    1989-90   Melisa Weis        Bakersfield/                Cal State-
                                 Bakersfield, CA             Bakersfield Grad.

    1988-89   Angela Burnham     Rio Mesa/Oxnard, CA         UCLA Grad.

    1987-88   Chryste Gaines     South Oak Cliff/Dallas, TX  Stanford Grad.

    1986-87   Janeene Vickers    Pomona/Pomona, CA           UCLA Grad.

    1985-86   Yolanda Johnson    George Washington/          Univ. of
                                 Denver, CO                  Colorado Grad.

SOURCE Gatorade