Top Speed: Des Peres Teen Captures Three Medals at Junior Olympics

Neither oppressive heat nor a painful knee injury kept Andi Kuehnlein from bringing home three medals from the AAU Junior Olympic Games earlier this month.

The incoming eighth grader at runs for the St. Louis Lightning and competed in four events at the Amateur Athletic Union track and field event in New Orleans.

Temperatures soared every day to 100 or higher and the humidity was “horrid,” said Kuehnlein’s mom, Kelly Kuehnlein, of Des Peres.

“The heat was unbelievable,” Kuehnlein said. “I don’t know how the kids did it.”

More than 12,000 youth from 48 states competed in the event July 29-Aug. 6.

Kuehnlein, 13, earned second place in her age group for the pentathlon, scoring 2,840 points, just 60 shy of the first-place 2,900. The pentathlon is an all-day competition involving five events -- high jump, 100-meter hurdles, long jump, shot put and 800-meter run. Each event is run one after another with only a short break in between.

“It’s a long day,” Kelly Kuehnlein said. “She’s really good at the 800 meter but her favorite would be the high jump.”

On subsequent days, Andi came in sixth place in the high jump (clearing 5 feet) and eighth in the 400-meter dash with a time of 59.9 (though she got into the final round with a time of 57.9.)

She also entered the 200-meter hurdles but injured her knee going over the second to last hurdle, yet still managed to place tenth with a time of 29.29.

Kuehnlein was already nursing the knee, having previously pulled a muscle at her qualifying meet in July.

“She did a great job,” Lightning coach Phil Wollbrinck said. “She’s mentally tough and she keeps getting better every year.

“She’s running times right now that could get her to the state meet in high school,” he said. “She can go as far as she wants to – it could easily pay for her college someday or maybe even do more.”

Kuehnlein is a veteran of the national AAU meets, having first qualified when she was 9. She has earned 15 medals in the indoor and outdoor nationals since then, including four gold medals, two in high jump.

“This one was definitely the hardest” because of the heat, she said.

“I was really disappointed about the 400,” she said. “I was just worn out.”

The AAU Junior Olympic Games are known as the largest national multi-sport event for youth in the United States.

Andi said she loves to run and compete but was looking forward to taking time off to return to soccer, basketball and school plays.

“It’s nice to have a break,” she said.