SALINAS \u2013 Clara Adams, who won a state title in the 400 meters last spring in track only to see it stripped from her, is transferring to Woodrow Wilson High school in Long Beach this semester, following a family move.<\/p>\n
The former North Salinas High sprinter will begin the second semester of the school year next Monday, as her dad landed a new job in Southern California.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited for new scenery and more competition,\u201d Adams said. \u201cI\u2019ll be fine. It\u2019s a really good school for track. One of the reasons I wanted to go there is I have friends there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 17-year-old became arguably the most talked about athlete at last year\u2019s state track and field championships when she won the 400-meter title as a sophomore.<\/p>\n
After the race, Adams sprayed her shoes with a fire extinguisher in celebration off the track.\u00a0The celebration was considered excessive and unsportsmanlike by meet officials and she was stripped of her title and disqualified from the meet, keeping her from competing in the 200 meters.<\/p>\n
The nationwide attention earned Adams and a name, image and likeness deal with Politely Raw, a podcast company. She and her family are still hoping she\u2019ll be reinstated as a state champion and have threatened legal action.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t eat at me anymore,\u201d Adams said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say I\u2019ve let it go. But I\u2019m not dwelling on it. It does serve as motivation to get back to state and finish.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Adams put her name in the spotlight for her work on the track over the summer, capturing AAU Junior National titles in the under-18 division in the 200 and 400.<\/p>\n
Her marks of 52.58 seconds in the 400 and 23.42 in the 200 \u2013 both legal times \u2013 shattered the Monterey County records. Adams was the only double event winner in her age division.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is her last two years of high school track,\u201d said Adams\u2019 father, David. \u201cThe first two went by so fast. I want her to be in a position to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adams, who has signed a deal with Nike and will compete in an Indoor meet in New York in March, hopes to qualify for the Youth U20 World Games later this summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was Clara\u2019s decision to attend Wilson,\u201d David Adams said, \u201cnot mine. She was the one that made contact with the school. No one called her.\u201d<\/p>\n
While David Adams has been her personal coach since she began tearing up AAU track in the fifth grade, he\u2019s confident in the staff at Woodrow Wilson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will always be Clara\u2019s sprint coach,\u201d David Adams said. \u201cBut I have to start my own journey. I\u2019m comfortable with the decision she\u2019s made. I can still support my kid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because it\u2019s a family move to Southern California, Adams, who is changing schools for the third time in a calendar year, should be immediately eligible to compete for Wilson.<\/p>\n
The start of spring sports is slated for Feb. 2.<\/p>\n
Adams left North Salinas after her sophomore year and enrolled at Watsonville High, where she played volleyball in the fall, but still lived in Salinas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where I\u2019ve (Salinas) grown up,\u201d Adams said. \u201cSo, I\u2019ll miss my friends and family. It\u2019s just time to move on for me and my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last fall, Adams took recruiting visits to the University of Houston and Miami, with at least three more visits on the table in the coming months.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been in contact with a lot of schools,\u201d said Adams, who couldn\u2019t put a number on the amount of colleges that have made contact with her.<\/p>\n
Adams will be competing for a program that has won three straight state girls track and field team titles and will be the favorite this spring to four-peat.<\/p>\n
Last year, the 5-foot-7 sprinter shaved nearly two seconds off her career best in breaking the Central Coast Section record in the 400 meters.<\/p>\n
As a 15-year-old freshman in 2024, she stunned a talented field at the CCS finals and won the 200. She holds North Salinas school records in the 200, 400 and 800.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still a 400-meter runner first,\u201d Adams said. \u201cBut I\u2019m a 200-400 runner. That\u2019s what I do. My 200 has gotten a lot better. I want to go sub-23 this spring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adams has spent the last six weeks improving her endurance, as she has set her sights on the California record of 50.74\u00a0 in the 400, held by former Olympian Monique Henderson.<\/p>\n
Last week, she won the 300 meters at an all-comers meet in 38.64, which is the No. 2 time in California.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe training has been hard because it\u2019s in the winter and I\u2019m being timed,\u201d Adams said. \u201cBut I want that state record in the 400. I\u2019ve got two years to dip under 50 seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n
The county records in the 200 and 400 that Adams broke last spring both came from Monterey graduate Sani Roseby, who went on to qualify for two US Olympic Trials meets in 2004 and 2008.<\/p>\n
Adams was the first North Salinas female athlete to win a section track and field title, finishing fourth in the state in the 400 as a freshman.<\/p>\n
The most decorated female track and field athlete to ever come out of North Salinas, Adams never lost a Pacific Coast Athletic League race, capturing two CCS titles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SALINAS \u2013 Clara Adams, who won a state title in the 400 meters last spring in track only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[5097,7,11026,11027,11028,1471,11029,11030,11031,2044,33214,11032,23,11041,131,133,132,5434,10007,858,11033,180,266,11034,11035,11036,38031,11037,11038,11039,11040,127,31863],"class_list":["post-143426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-big-sur","tag-california","tag-carmel","tag-carmel-valley","tag-castroville","tag-central-coast","tag-del-rey-oaks","tag-gonzales","tag-greenfield","tag-high-school-sports","tag-high-school-track","tag-king-city","tag-local-news","tag-local-sports","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-marina","tag-monterey","tag-monterey-county","tag-moss-landing","tag-newsletter","tag-northern-california","tag-pacific-grove","tag-pebble-beach","tag-prunedale","tag-pushly-alerts","tag-salinas","tag-sand-city","tag-seaside","tag-soledad","tag-sports","tag-sports-newsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}