Ava and Peyton Belknap of Auburn are making great strides in track and field. The Auburn Track Club members race around the track at Edward Little High School during practice earlier this week. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

At the 2021 USA Track and Field Junior Olympics in late July, Auburn’s Ava Belknap lined up at the starting line in Jacksonville, Florida, ready to attack the 1,500-meter race walk with other 9- and 10-year-olds from throughout the United States. 

Two years ago, Belknap’s mother, Valerie, was unsure if her daughter should even participate the sport. Knees and hips are worked hard during race walk, and Valerie Belknap was unsure it was safe for her 9-year-old daughter.

Ava and Peyton Belknap of Auburn recently participated in the USA Track and Field Junior Olympics. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

“Two years ago (Ava and her twin sister Peyton) did track, and Abby Smith asked us to get into race walk, and I said no,” Valerie Belknap said. “This year she said she wanted to try race walk and I was very nervous because of the hips and the knees. I contacted the high school coach to see if it was OK. (Ava) came and she loved it and did outstanding, and that’s when Abby said there’s Junior Olympics in Florida, and I said, ‘Yeah, yeah.'”

Then, earlier this summer, the Auburn Track Club participated in a meet at Maranacook, at which Ava Belknap’s time was fast enough to rank third in the nation in her age group.

“We felt there was no other choice, we had to send her (to the Junior Olympics),” Valerie Belknap said.

At Junior Olympics, Ava competed in the 1,500-meter race walk, while Peyton raced in the 800-meter run. 

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Ava finished second in he race with a time of 10 minutes, 19.24 seconds, only eight hundredths of a second away from being a national champion.

It’s no surprise what her favorite part of the Junior Olympics was.

Ava and Peyton Belknap run around the track at Edward Little High School earlier this week during an Auburn Track Club practice. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

“Winning the medal in the race walk,” Ava Belknap said. “I did good, I got second and it felt good.”

Peyton, meanwhile, had a different, more difficult experience in Florida. 

Her event got delayed, it was hot in Jacksonville, she said she had a bit of a cold and she was away from her parents for a while as she waited by the track for her 800-meter race.

Her parents and a kind USATF worker helped change the trajectory of Peyton’s day. 

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“She was out,” Valerie Belknap said. “She was about to pack her bags and leave, but we talked to her and we told her we’d take her out, and she decided to do it anyway. 

“How did that feel?” Valerie asked Peyton. 

“Good. It was exciting,” Peyton Belknap said. “Someone helped me and gave me water and told me she was going to cheer me on.”

Peyton finished 53rd in the nation with a time of 3:40.74. Her dad, Brian, said the entire city of Jacksonville could hear him cheering. 

Ava and Peyton are now preparing for the Maine USATF state meet Saturday at Massabesic High School, where they’ll compete in a variety of events.

Peyton has a unique way of classifying the distances of each race.

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“This is the breadstick (100-meter), then the candy cane (200), then the doughnut (400) and then the two doughnuts (800),” Peyton Belknap said.

The Belknaps’ coach, Smith, formerly known as Abby Dunn and a former star race walker at Edward Little High School who went on to compete at Goshen College in Indiana and on the national stage, is excited to see the sisters compete Saturday after working with them all summer. 

“Ava’s one of the younger ones that went to nationals, and she’s been super fun and willing to do whatever,” Smith said. “I don’t think she had an idea of how good she was; she’s been part of a bigger group of younger kids training. It’s been fun to watch her with some of the other groups that are experienced and she beats some of the 9- and 10-year-old boys. She does anything, she tries anything, she’s happy-go-lucky all the time.”

“Peyton’s done great,” Smith added. “She’s run the 1,500 and the 800, she just has a lot of endurance and she didn’t know how to push herself, but as the season has gone on she’s figured out how to. She went out to take the 800 in the state qualifier meet last week and led from the 100-meter mark and led the whole time and had a PR and it was the most confident she’s ever been. I could have cried.”

MAINE RACE WALKERS

Smith has kept herself busy this summer while keeping tens of other athletes busy as coach of Auburn Track Club and of a group she started, Maine Race Walkers, which includes many of the state’s race walkers. 

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Smith said she has more than 40 race walkers, of varying ages, whom she has coached this summer. Ten of them competed at the Junior Olympics.

At the Class A Maine high school state meet earlier this year, Bonny Eagle’s Rowen McDonald (7:58.04) finished second to a Maine Race Walker teammate, Lucien Beardsley of Gorham (7:55.27). At the Junior Olympics, McDonald took first (16:29.05) in the boys 13-14 3,000-meter race walk, while Beardsley (17:45.59) finished in fourth in the boys 17-18 3,000 race walk. Both athletes credited Smith with making them better race walkers.

“It’s been good to try new things,” Beardsley said.

Maine Race Walkers, from left, Isabelle Langelier, Gabrielle Langelier, Kasey Smith, Rowan McDonald, Lucien Beardsley, Kiki Dinsmore and Ashlyn Poulin, are coached by former Edward Little athlete Abby Smith. Adam Robinson/Sun Journal

Daniel Smith of Gorham also went to the Junior Olympics and placed second place in the boys 11-12 1,500 race walk with a time of 9:29.80. 

There were seven girls race walkers, including Ava Belknap, from Smith’s team who competed at the Junior Olympics.

Poland’s Aubrianna Millett finished in ninth in the 9-10 age division 1,500 race walk with a time of 13:34.02. In the 15-16 division 3,000-meter final, Kiki Dinsmore of Brunswick placed in 10th (19:21.19), while Isabelle Langelier (19:51.28) and Kasey Smith (20:58.89), both of Auburn, finished 12th and 13th, respectively.

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Gabrielle Langelier, also of Auburn, took sixth in the girls 13-14 3,000 race walk (23:15.5), while Gardiner’s Ashlyn Poulin claimed third place in the women’s 17-18 3,000 race walk (17:43.21).

Smith’s workouts aren’t always enjoyable to the athletes she coaches — the consensus of the group is that the 400-meter workouts are the least favorite — they have had a positive impact.

“Overall hard and challenging, but overall I think it paid off and it has been really good. I’ve really enjoyed it,” Dinsmore said. “I’ve gotten a lot faster and my form has gotten even better. I have worked on my arms and my hip rotation.”

Many of Smith’s athletes want to continue race walking through their high school careers, and even beyond that, at the college level. 

“It’s also a cool experience, because if you think about running, there are so many different runners, whereas race walking, it’s a unique sport,” Dinsmore said. “As long as you get into it, you get the form down, you can use race walk to go see the world.”

“She didn’t have to talk me into doing it in college,” Poulin said. “It’s something that I’ve wanted to do ever since I started in sixth grade. I like how it’s not known. Just saying I am in it and then people ask all these questions, it’s what I like about the sport a lot. To have the chance to explain it to people and show what it is.”

Smith said that her twice-a-week practices with her Maine Race Walker group, along with her work with the Auburn Track Club during the summer, has given her optimism about the future of race walking in the Auburn area.

“It’s been fun,” Smith said. “I feel like when I was doing it we had a bunch of kids from other schools, and we would travel with them, and I felt it had kind of died down and I’ve wanted to do it the last couple years. It’s been nice to make the community where we all race during track but now we are all on the same team. We try to connect them with kids that have the same goals as them or (who) did not have an outlet to do it. A lot of the time they wouldn’t have been teammates or friends otherwise.”

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