Amali Torney travelled to the US in late September to compete in the Invitational Cross Country Championships.
Her first race was the Music Mountain Invitational in Peach Springs, Arizona. She competed in the 5,000m Open Women's event and managed to come away with the win! She was shocked but absolutely thrilled with her result - her time was 19:00.85.
Amali's second race was a much bigger meet at the Vegas Elite Twilight Invitational with races for each Year level as well as an Open Elite race. Based on her seed time she was put in the 5,000m Open Elite race. A very late night- as there was some flash flooding the races were postponed by an hour and her race was the last of the evening at 10.20pm! After a bit of leap-frogging scored herself a 2nd place to an American athlete and placing 1st Aussie with a time of 19:43.
She had to back it straight up as the third race was early the next morning at 8.30am at the Thunderbird Invitational in Indian Springs, Nevada. Amali raced in the 5,000m Open Women's Varsity and again managed to take out the overall win, with a time of 21:49.
Amongst this there have been training sessions with US High schools and early team training runs as well as plenty of sight-seeing at Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon, Cirque de Soleil, Shopping at the Las Vegas Strip, Disneyland, Universal Studios to name a few.
After a whirlwind trip of a lifetime, Amali had the most amazing time and made many new friends through this amazing experience. It is fair to say she will needed to come home for a big rest!
