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STEVENS POINT - Over the next two days more than 1,600 athletes will participate in an action-packed weekend of swimming, track and field, power lifting and soccer during the 2009 Special Olympic Summer Games.
Some of the track and field events include fast walking, the softball throw and the turbo javelin.
Carol Fougner is the track coach for the Polk County team. “We have runners in the 200 and 400 meter, softball and shot-put,” said Fougner who has nine athletes competing this year.
“We like to see that we can perform well against other agencies from the southern part of the state; everyone is improving each year and they love coming and love showing that we can do a good job.”
The Polk County team is actually walking around with a target on their backs. Overall the team has done well in the past winning a handful of gold and bronze medals.
However Crystal Fougner is one athlete who has made it as far as the Nationals.
“I got two gold medals in the shot-put,” said Fougner about the 2006 National games in Iowa. “The medals made me happy.”
When team Wisconsin went to Nationals, there were only two athletes from the northern part of the state and Fougner was one of a dozen track athletes from Wisconsin.
Fougner has a string of medals dangling from a hanger in her bedroom. She trains regularly at the high school track in Amery, a small community in the far northwestern part of the state near St. Croix Falls and Osceola.
The victories are quite a feat the 21-year-old Fougner, primarily because she is rather small in stature and heaving a shot-put far enough, 23-and-a-half-feet, to garner gold. “She’s only 5-foot-1 and she’s not a big girl, compared to some of her competition,” said her mom Carol.
Fougner will be competing in the 100, 200 and 400 meter races along with the shot-put during this weekend’s Summer Games.
For more stories about the Summer Games check out a feature on opening day ceremonies or an article highlighting Green Bay Packer A.J. Hawk who is this year's honorary spokesman.
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