Elizabeth Malcolm won the Special Olympics Girls 100-meter dash in 14.08 seconds at the 130th running of The Penn Relays, held on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in late April.
She grabbed the lead at the beginning of the race and went unchallenged. Finishing second was Emily Kaminskyj of Sparta, N.J. with a 14.91 clocking.
After the race, Malcolm said that she was not worried about anyone passing her.
When asked to describe the race, the 21-year-old Malcolm of Wayne, Pa. said,
“It was fun.”
Her father Jim Malcolm said that she won a lot of races at Special Olympics events.
“She even won here (at The Penn Relays) for several years,” said Jim Malcolm.
There’s no doubt Elizabeth is always confident when she takes her place at the starting line, but her father said when she was younger, she had no confidence at all.
“The first six years of her life were tough,” said Jim Malcolm. “She was different from other children. She had speech problems; she was behind academically.”
At first, her parents had trouble getting her diagnosed. They didn’t know where to go for that and nobody was helping them, but things changed for the better after she started getting seizures at age six.
Jim Malcolm remembered feeling relieved when his daughter began getting seizures because now her public elementary school helped them find a place where Elizabeth could be properly diagnosed.
She was diagnosed with having IDD (Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities). Some IDD characteristics are learning to walk and talk at later ages than other children.
“The problem we now had was finding a community for her,” her father said. “At first, it wasn’t easy.” But then everything clicked when her parents got her involved with the Special Olympics. She decided to run track.
The Special Olympics track coaches saw that she had a lot of talent from day one. Her father added that she had already been running at her elementary school running program, Girls on the Run. He added that the Special Olympics boosted her confidence. In junior high school, she came to school wearing Special Olympics medals that she had recently won.
“That impressed her classmates and teachers,” said Jim Malcolm.
One of the biggest joys that Elizabeth Malcolm had from this year’s Penn Relays was winning the first-place medal, and then standing on the first-place podium on Franklin Field at the University of Pennsylvania in front of nearly 30,000 track and field fans.
Unfortunately, there was one minor glitch in Elizabeth Malcolm’s wonderful day.
The official website of The Penn Relays, www.thepennrelays.com listed Kaminskyj as the first-place finisher and Malcolm as runner-up. That was incorrect.
At the request of this Able News writer, Eric Raumen, the official Penn Relays media coordinator watched the Special Olympics Girls 100-meter dash replay online. He saw for himself that Elizabeth Malcolm was the winner, unequivocally.
“This didn’t bother Elizabeth,” said her father. “She was happy that she won, and got to stand on the first-place podium. It doesn’t matter what the results said. I watched that race several times online and saw my daughter win.”
In the Special Olympics Boys 100-meter dash at the Penn Relays, Rodta Maddox of St. Mary’s County Md. finished first posting a 12.19 second clocking.
The runner-up was Christian Partlow of Delaware; his time was 12.49.
Maddox ran The Penn Relays before, but his experience did not chase away the butterflies.
“I was a little nervous,” said Maddox.
Another noteworthy event at The Penn Relays was the Special Olympics 4×100-meter relay. A Delaware team, which consisted of Colin Sligh, DeShawn Hamilton, DeLonte Hamilton, and Christian Parlow, won with a 50.57 finish.
“I just got a good handoff from my buddy, Colin,” said DeShawn Hamilton. (Handoff — handing the baton to the next teammate.) When DeShawn Hamilton grabbed the baton, his team was in second place, but he moved them up to first. He did not have a well-thought-out plan.
“I just ran my hardest,” said DeShawn Hamilton. “I was just running in the moment. I wasn’t thinking about anything.”
Running the third leg was DeShawn’s brother DeLonte Hamilton.
“I grabbed the handoff from my brother,” said DeLonte Hamilton. “It was perfect. We spent hours practicing handoffs.”
When Parlow anchored, his team was still in first place. He was not worried about anyone passing him.
“I was just running in the moment,” said Parlow.
According to David Johnson, the former director of The Penn Relays Carnival, athletes with disabilities first competed in The Penn Relays in 1982, and 1988 was the first time that Special Olympics athletes competed there.
Over the years, athletes with disabilities, their coaches and organization leaders who serve this population told this writer that they enjoy putting on these exhibitions at The Penn Relays because it gives over 30,000 people the chance to see athletes with different types of disabilities compete.
Instead of lecturing to thousands of track fans who might only care about The Penn Relays Olympic Development and College races or USA Versus the World, these people can just look at those athletes competing on the track and then see for themselves that disability does not mean inability.
The Penn Relays has a rich history. The first Penn Relays took place on Franklin Field in 1895. Well known athletes such as Jesse Owens, Jim Thorpe, Carl Lewis and the current world record holder in the men’s 100-meter dash, Usain Bolt competed at The Penn Relays. (Bolt set the world record of running 100 meters in 9.58 seconds in 2009 at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Germany.)
For more information about The Penn Relays, go to pennrelays.com.