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Monday, 17 September 2012 02:10

Minnesota Multisport Awards - The 2012 MMA Selection Committee has begun the process of reviewing athlete resumes and recommending nominees in 13 categories. Official nominees will be announced in early October. Here, we will introduce you, in alphabetical order, to some of the athletes who are being discussed in the Junior of the Year category.

* Mata Agre, 19, Corcoran (Photo)

* Greta Danielson, 18, St. Cloud (JOY Nominee in 2011)...

* Tyler Hecht, 19, St. Cloud (SCSU Student) - JOY nominee in 2011

* Ted Heikkila, 19, Duluth

* Jane Koch, 15, Burnsville

* Erik Money, 19, Fergus Falls

* Katie Oden, 19, Buffalo (photo R)

* Melanie Rabino, 17, Woodbury

To be eligible for an official nomination in this coed category, candidates must have turned in at least three noteworthy performances, ones that demonstrate elite potential. In other words, we measure their efforts against those adult athletes who set the standards in our region. The narrower the gulf between the junior's performances with those of, say, Patrick, Parish or Matthew Payne, or Claire Bootsma and Suzie Fox, the better their chances of receiving a nomination. Of course, if a junior with three or more elite-ish efforts, also has a few poor or sub-wonderful performances, this demonstrates a lack of consistency and hurts an athlete's chances of being nominated.

The listing above by no means names all of Minnesota's talented teen triathletes. There are several others that we will consider IF it can be demonstrated that they raced often enough, and with sufficiently remarkable results. For instance, we have been impressed with Maple Grove's Marissa Mitchell (photo L) this season, but she may not have raced often enough to receive serious consideration. We have similar concerns about 2011 JOY Hannah Strom, and 2011 nominee Paige Danielson. Has their racing volume and consistency been sufficient enough to warrant serious consideration?

After an initial evaluation of the season, we are strongly impressed by Hecht, Danielson and Koch. (Jane really stepped up her game in July and demonstrated solid improvement in every race thereafter.) But wait, Agre, Oden and Heikkila had their share of awesome efforts, too.

The committee sure has its work cut out for it.