Emmanuel Asabere

Senior, Emmanuel Asabere participating in high jump and the decathlon.

Malik Phillips, Reporter

Senior Emmanuel Asabere had heart complications in 2018 that made it so he could not run for roughly two years, but that still did not stop Asabere from competing in the 2021 Junior Olympics, placing 9th in high jump. 

Asabere said what drew him to track was his father, who was trying to keep him out of trouble. He has been running track since he was in the 7th grade.

This past track season Asabere competed in the high jump.  Although he had very limited training for this event, he said he had zero complaints when asked to do an event outside of running.

 “I really didn’t train at all for high jump; I just went out there, trusted in God and jumped,” he said. 

Although Asabere’s form and technique was not that good, it still didn’t stop him from jumping an insane 5’8 at nationals despite having limited training and only jumping 5’3 in a previous meet two weeks earlier . 

Asabere credits his athleticism and ability to do high jump to his mother.   He said, “My mom did high jump in high school so I think I just got the genes. So, I just went and jumped.”

Asabere has big goals for the upcoming track season saying that he wants to hit 6’0 and even hit a higher hit to compete for and even win states. 

He is also looking forward to competing in the four-by-one saying that he has some new runners and really believes that the four-by-one team will be very good this year.