The following post is the lead article from the July 2021 Put-in-Bay Gazette, published here with their permission. To support the Put-in-Bay Gazette and all of the great work that they do, visit putinbay.news!
Middle Bass’s Olympian Aquilla Heading to Tokyo!
Adelaide Aquilla placed third in the shot put at the USA Olympic Trials at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon on Thurs-day June 24th, 2021. The Ohio State University Junior is headed to the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan. She will be representing Middle Bass Island, St.
Raphael Elementary School, the Village of Put-in-Bay, The Ohio State University, Gibraltar Island, South Bass Island, Green Island, Magnificat High School in Rocky River, The Isle of St. George (North Bass), Starve Island, West Sister Island, The Middle Bass Island General Store, the gas dock at The Middle Bass Island State Park, J.F. Walleye’s, the continental United States, and the parts of the United States that are not attached to the continental United States (as well as its territories and provinces).
That is a lot of weight to carry. Fortunately, Adelaide is very strong. The woman’s shot weighs 8.8 pounds. She can throw it over 62 feet. You have to be powerful to “put the shot,” but just as important is your balance, coordination, and fine motor control. To compete you have the power of a weight lifter combined with the grace of a ballerina.
Adelaide has both.
She also has the support of a great family and extended family. Parents Jared and Tracy as well as brothers Jonas and Ambrose could not be happier or prouder of her. Adelaide was a solid field competitor at Magnificat High School. She was fortunate to attend OSU.
She was a “walk on” to the OSU track and field program. Adelaide had promise but expectations were, she might score a few dual meet points here and there.
However, under the coaching of Lorain County Native Ashley Kovacs, she blossomed over the last three years.
Adelaide is a hard worker. During the Covid Pandemic, she spent hours training on Middle Bass Island. Her father, Jared, welded together a weight lifting station in her Grandfather Paul Aquilla’s garage. It sat alongside Paul’s fish cleaning table, circular saw, battery jump boxes, miscellaneous tires from long forgotten trucks, a 1984 13-ft. Boston Whaler, three different brands of chainsaws, coffee cans full of every nut, bolt, wingnut, screw imaginable, zip ties, random sheets of ply-wood, and industrial shelving holding boxes of obscure marine hardware from the 1970s. Her door stop was the propeller nut of a decommissioned 300-ft. Lake Erie freighter.
Adelaide trained and sweated remotely, working out mostly alone in the summer of 2020. Come 2021 the payoff was remarkable.
In the last 12 months she has dominated her events, winning the Division I Big Ten Championship, National Indoor Championship, and the Outdoor National Championship. Great coaching and the support of her fellow OSU teammates took Adelaide to the next level.
The Olympics will be one chapter in a fine young woman’s life. The best is yet to come.
Adelaide, you will be cheered at the MBI General Store and J.F. Walleyes. You have made Middle Bass (and all the islands in the western basin of Lake Erie) proud. There is something special in the water of Lake Erie. “Go ADA!”
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