Pittmon wins big at Des Moines

Nick Pittmon had three personal goals for this year’s state track meet.

The East Mills senior and defending 100-meter state champion in Class 1A, wanted to repeat in the 100-meters, win the 200 and place in the top three in the long jump.

Check. Check. And yes, check.

Pittmon wrapped up his second gold medal at the 2013 Iowa State Track meet after running a blistering 22.44 in the 200-meters to best the 1A field on the Drake Stadium track. The gold was Pittmon’s second after successfully defending his gold medal in the 100-meters earlier in the day on Saturday.

Pittmon had already won a silver Thursday when the leapt 21 feet, 2 1/2 inches in his final attempt to win a silver in the event.

“You need to set your goals high and you can’t just say you want to get second place,” Pittmon said. “You always have to go for first place.”

East Mills coach Claude Lang was aware of Pittmon’s goals coming in even if the quiet senior didn’t always like to talk about them. Lang had simple advice: make the finals and go from there.

“We knew that was what he wanted to do and we knew he could do it,” Lang said. “We talk a lot about finishing strong and he did that.”

Lang thinks Pittmon may have benefited from the fact he made his last three jumps after winning the 100-meters.

Pittmon’s 11.09 preliminary time in the 100 was the fastest in Iowa’s four classes at state. While his final time was a bit off at 11.24 seconds, it was still good enough to take home his second gold in the event.

Lang thinks Pittmon set the tone for his state meet on the first day during the long jump. When Pittmon returned to the long jump pit after running his 100-meters, he calmly and literally jumped right into second place, trailing only two-time champion Josh Markert of Manson Northwest Webster’s 22 feet, 4 inches, on his third jump.

“He had done 21 feet a couple times this year and I figured he would need that to place but then he scratched his first two jumps (in the finals) and I went ‘Oh gosh,” Lang said. “I could tell though, he was right on. Then he comes back and gets just that (21 feet) and I knew right away he reached that goal.”

An hour later Friday Pittmon ran the fastest 200-meter qualifying time (22.46) to make the finals in the event he won silver in last year.

Saturday, Pittmon was as focused and in the zone as Lang has seen his star sprinter.

“It’s hard to tell with him,” Lang said of Pittmon. “He’s hard to read sometimes. But he didn’t want to really eat anything so I told him, ‘Just go out there an have fun. It’s your last track meet.’ So I could kind of tell he was ready but when it came to the finals in them (the 100 and the 200) I could definitely see he was in the zone.”

Pittmon summed it up best, after winning his second gold medal on Saturday, when asked how he felt to win double gold medals on the final day of the state track meet.

“My emotions are pretty high right now,” he said. “I was supposed to win those two events.”