Elsie Williamson can add a new gold medal to her trophy collection.
The Taylorville junior heaved a winning distance of 139 feet, 7 inches in the Class 2A discus throw at the girls track and field state finals at O’Brien Field in Charleston on Saturday, May 23.
She tacked on a new personal best on three of her six attempts.
Williamson previously corralled second place in the 2024 state finals before earning fourth in 2025. She also boasts two Illinois Elementary School Association state titles in the ring.
She embraced a slew of events throughout the season before solely concentrating on the discus throw.
“All season I’ve been training on a lot of different events, so it’s been really great to kind of get to focus on discus this week — a lot of hard work, lots of prayers, lots of strength from God and we got it,” Williamson said.
Routt’s Schumacher prevails with 800 title
Jacksonville Routt sophomore Millie Schumacher similarily established a personal best to win the Class 1A 800-meter run in 2 minutes, 13.86 seconds.
She held off Glasford Illini Bluffs runner-up Audrey Dickenson by 0.44 seconds for her first state title of her high school career. She was a 400-meter state champion in eighth grade.
“It was definitely difficult,” Schumacher said. “I definitely felt my legs falling off, but I just kept pushing looking for that finish line.
“I was mainly just hoping to do my best and race against some really talented runners and just push myself and see what I can do.”
Other top performers around Springfield
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: See top girls track and field state results in the Springfield area
Reporting by Bill Welt, Springfield State Journal-Register / State Journal-Register
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