For many who watch track and field during the Olympics, success is measured by how fast an athlete sprints, how high they jump, or how quickly they clear a set of hurdles.<\/p>\n
But for 15-year-old Preston Richardson, success comes from another side of the sport many people know little about: spinning inside a throwing circle and launching a 12-pound metal ball more than half the length of a football field.<\/p>\n
It is a sport that requires explosive power, precise footwork, balance and years of practice. Preston has developed that combination well enough to qualify for the 2026 USA Track and Field National Junior Olympic Championships in three throwing events: discus, hammer throw and shot put.<\/p>\n
The ongoing competition continues through Sunday, Aug. 2, in Norwalk and is considered one of the nation\u2019s premier youth track and field competitions, bringing together thousands of the country\u2019s top young athletes. For many competitors, it serves as a launching pad to NCAA scholarships, college competition and, eventually, Team USA.<\/p>\n
Preston, who is a rising junior at Christian Brothers High School, didn\u2019t grow up dreaming of becoming a thrower. His journey into the sport began almost by accident.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started track back in seventh grade as an off-season to my main season of basketball,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I got into high school and learned there were so many more options, I started taking more of a liking to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In shot put, athletes \u201cput,\u201d or push, a 12-pound metal ball from their shoulder, using explosive leg drive and technique to send it as far as possible.<\/p>\n
In discus, competitors spin inside a circle before releasing a heavy disc, Preston describes this as \u201ca heavy Frisbee,\u201d relying on timing and body control as much as strength.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For many who watch track and field during the Olympics, success is measured by how fast an athlete…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[9739,121,123,122,127,7164],"class_list":["post-418060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-print","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-sports","tag-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418060","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=418060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}