Student Athlete of the Week Eliana Henriques

"Track has always been something I enjoyed," said rising Niwot High School senior Eliana Henriques. "I hope to participate on a college team after I graduate from high school next summer. It has been a challenging past few years, but I feel like I'm finally making a comeback."

Henriques' sophomore year track season was cut short due to injury when she hit a hurdle while running in March 2023. She tore her ACL and later had surgery in April 2023, followed by a lengthy nine months of physical therapy.

"It was a really repetitive and boring process," Henriques said. "I went three times a week for two-hour sessions and that whole time you are alone without your teammates. You want to participate with your team, but you can't. It's very isolating." After completing the physical therapy from her ACL surgery recovery, she strained her hamstring a few weeks later and had to return to physical therapy for three more weeks.

Before the 2024 season started, Henriques talked with her doctor and her father, who is also her track coach, to see what would be best for her track career and physical health going forward. As a primary jumper, the tear being in her dominant leg could have proved devastating. "They recommended against competing with jumping, since I have to push off my right leg and I was really sad about it," said Henriques. "One day during practice, I asked my coach if I could try jumping off of the other leg and then I kept messing around with it. It didn't feel too weird to me, so I kept practicing until it worked."

NHS track Head Coach Maurice Henriques added, "As a dad I was concerned, but she worked hard and showed to me and her other coaches that she could do it and was working very hard to accomplish what she set her mind to."

Eliana Henriques has some advice for athletes struggling to recover from an injury. She said, "Trust the process and the results will come. You can't be too hard on yourself. You have to just keep pushing through it."

Recently, Henriques was a large part of Niwot High School's success during the Class 4A State Championship on May 18 in Lakewood. She was a part of the team that placed for the girls 4x200 relay and the girls 4x400 relay.

Henriques has a bright future ahead of her. She will be one of the athletes competing as part of REAL Training in the Nike Outdoor Nationals Tournament held in Oregon from June 12 to June 15. There she will run in the EE 400m, EE 200m, and compete in the EE Long Jump, as well as be part of the 4x100 club relay and the 4x400 club relay teams.

Reflecting on the past year and a half, she said, "It has been a really big challenge coming back from such a major injury, but I'm really proud of what I have accomplished and am very excited for next year!"