Student Athlete of the Week: Olivia Alessandrini

After battling COVID-19 earlier in the month, Niwot High School cross country senior Olivia Alessandrini was unsure how well she’d run at regionals on Oct. 19.

Her stamina was still in recovery mode, and because the North Area Athletic Complex in Arvada is no easy course, she wasn’t exactly confident heading into the meet. Regardless, Alessandrini embraced the challenge and completed the 5,000-meter race with a personal best time (at altitude) of 17 minutes, 49 seconds.

Alessandrini’s confidence is now riding high heading into the state championships on Oct. 28.

“If I was able to handle regionals pretty well despite not being 100% back, I know that I'll keep on getting better leading up to state,” Alessandrini said. “I'm very confident.”

The Niwot girls will run next at the Norris Penrose Event Center in Colorado Springs with the program’s sixth straight team state title up for grabs. Alessandrini, who took 14th individually (19:10) at state last year, takes great pride in the opportunity ahead.

“Freshman and sophomore me would not believe how far I've come because I didn't even get to run at state my freshman and sophomore years,” she said.” (Coming) so far as to where I'm a core part of the people that go score points, it's a huge accomplishment for me.”

In her senior year alone, Alessandrini has come a long way. Although cross country results are dependent on the course’s difficulty, her times have gotten shorter and shorter throughout the season, according to her Athletic.net page. She finished third (19:17.1) at the RE-1J District Meet on Sept. 6, second (18:06.8) at the St. Vrain Invitational 10 days later and then fourth (17:50.8) at the Desert Twilight Festival in Arizona on Sept. 29.

Alessandrini gave all the credit to her coaches and teammates.

“Niwot is just incredible — the program, the amount that the coaches care for us and the amount of effort they put into our training,” she said. “The overall fact that I have so many girls to run with and train with every day, and everyone's so tough, I'm going to be really sad to leave it.”

While the state championships mark the final time she’ll wear a Niwot cross country uniform, her high school athletics career is far from over. After state, she and many of her Niwot teammates make the transition to REAL Training, a club program led by Niwot track and field head coach Maurice Henriques, to compete for a national title.

Then, in the spring, Alessandrini figures to be a key member of Niwot’s track and field team. At the state meet last year, she took second in the 800-meter, fourth in the 1,600-meter, and third in the 3,200-meter to help the Niwot girls win their fourth consecutive team title.

First, though, Alessandrini’s focus is on helping Niwot bring home another state trophy.

“As our coach also likes to say, racing is a celebration of all of the hard work that we've done this season,” she said. “We're all excited to show off all of our hard work. Whatever the result will be, I think we're all going to be happy because we've put in the work and now it's just time to go and race.”

Alessandrini added that she’s currently narrowing down her options but will continue running cross country and track in college. She’d like to commit somewhere within the next couple of months.