SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
Happy to see that Irena Ossola, who won three state cross country championships at St. Michael’s before running four years at Columbia University, has fully recovered from a gruesome bicycle crash with a motor vehicle that occurred back in 2017 in Santa Fe. Now she’s back with the Horsemen as an assistant coach for head coach Lenny Gurule and the St. Michael’s harriers.
And London Lutrell, who qualified four times for the state XC championships, and was St. Michael’s lone runner in last year’s race, is also assisting Gurule as she puts off college plans during these coronavirus pandemic times. Gurule is also joined again by assistant coach Amy Lujan.
“It’s good that we now have full rosters with both the girls and boys,” says Gurule, who has won state team titles four times with the girls and twice with the boys. “On the boys side, we will bank on junior Rowan Flores and seniors Dennis Ortiz and Gabe McMahon.
“With the girls we have a impressive 8th-grader in Raylee Hunt. She’s pretty tough, a little slight, and a good young runner. Her older sister, Logan, now a sophomore, did some running with us, but would rather play soccer.”
While the boys are a mixture of three seniors, three juniors, two sophomores and one freshman, the girls are a pair of seniors and five 8th-graders, one of whom is Eva Eklund, sister of Violet Eklund, who was one of the top Lady Horsemen over four seasons.
The others young ones are Lauren Patton, Lauren Barela and Elisa Jackson, joining with the seniors Mia Romero and Paris Dixson.
As for the boys, the other senior is Dillion Goodwin, the juniors are Ryan Kuhn and Derek Martinez, the sophomores are Juaquin McKenna and Irvin Loya, the lone freshman is David Velasquez.
With the exception of last year, Gurule has had enough girls to officially score team points, but last season, it was the opposite, for he had enough boys to tally team points, while he had girls but only Lutrell was good enough to make it to state again. The previous time, he had only three girls who qualified for state, and it was disappointing that Eklund wasn’t one of them.
And Flores, who is recovering from an injury, made it to state last year and finished 20th in 17:56.00, a step behind senior teammate Justin Sanchez (17:54.25), comes in as the top Horseman, plus Ortiz, McMahon, Goodwin and Martinez also have experience from last year.
St. Michael’s will begin its shorten season Monday afternoon at Albuquerque’s St. Pius X.
Along with Ossola, who won state in 2003, 2004, and 2005, Gurule had another state champion with Kate Norskog winning in 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Horskog’s fastest time was 18:38 in 2006 when St. Michael’s also won the team title.
Ossola’s best time at state was 18:42 in 2005 when the Lady Horsemen also claimed the team title. She ran 19:35 in 2003 and 18:46 in 2004.
but never has a St. Michael’s boy crossed the line first, the closest being runner-up Andres Gonzales when he lost a photo-finish in his championship race.
Ossola is also a professional cyclist who now has a part-time residence at Oltrona al Lago, a small village in northern Italy that’s a short bike ride from the Swedish border.
As for the accident, Ossola was at the end of a four-hour training ride when she was approaching the roundabout on West Alameda Street and Siler Road when a SUV came out of the intersection from the opposite direction. She’d followed a familliar path that had taken her well past the state penitentiary and back along N.M. 599.
This time, it was the SUV turning left onto Quail View Lane and cutting directly in front of Ossola. The driver said he never saw her coming because the morning sunlight was behind her, later learning that the sun was streaming through waves of a Santa Fe juice bar.
Ossola made contact near the front right tire well. The impact launched her off her bike and over the hood of the SUV. Both of her thumbs were dislocated, and the impact was thought to have broken nearly even bone in her right hand and a few in her left. She landed face-first on the road, the majority of the force being absorbed by her upper body.
She suffered severe head trauma, and her left humerus was broken. There was much more damage done to her, but there’s no need to include it, for the most important thing is that she fortunately survived, is back on the pedals, riding her bike again, even doing some running, and Gurule is thankful to have her assisting him.
“Irena is the most determined athlete I’ve ever coached and honestly, if anyone can make this happen, it’s probably her,” says Gurule, now in his 18th season as St. Michael’s head coach, and the former 880-yard state champion.
As for Lutrell, her older brothers Denver and Austin, also ran cross country and track under Gurule, and each year, from 8th grade on up, she worked hard with their support.
