Our View: Three cheers for three Olympians | Alexandria Times

What’s higher than having an athlete out of your metropolis make the Olympic group? Having three former Titans representing Alexandria and the US in Japan for this yr’s summer season Olympics.

The tales of the three graduates of T.C. Williams Excessive Faculty, now referred to as Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty, are instructed in at present’s Instances front-page story “Three Titans vie for Olympic gold.”

Tynita Butts-Townsend, Noah Lyles and Troy IsLey graduated from T.C. Williams in 2009, 2016 and 2017 respectively. Whereas they share a tie to the Port Metropolis and are American Olympians headed to the one-year-delayed 2020 Summer time Olympics in Tokyo, the three athletes took very completely different routes to the Olympic roster.

Of the three, IsLey’s ties to town are the deepest. Though Wikipedia says IsLey was born in Washington, D.C., he grew up in Alexandria, attending the native Boys and Women Membership earlier than gravitating to boxing, his Olympic sport, and he nonetheless resides and trains right here.

A 165-pound middleweight, IsLey and two of his teammates are the primary skilled boxers to be a part of the U.S. Olympic group. IsLey, 22, trains with Alexandria coaches Kay Koroma and Dennis Porter on the Alexandria Boxing Membership and wears boxing trunks with ALX on the entrance.

Lyles, who turned skilled and moved to Florida to coach proper after graduating from T.C. Williams, was a star virtually from the second he set foot on an Alexandria observe in eighth grade. He’s ranked first on this planet within the males’s 200 meters distance.

Lyles, who will flip 24 on Sunday, stands a practical probability of profitable two gold medals in Tokyo.

Butts-Townsend, a excessive jumper, has had probably the most circuitous, and controversial, path to the Olympic roster. A local of Hampton, Virginia who attended East Carolina College after graduating from T.C. Williams, Butts-Townsend didn’t carry out nicely on the Olympic Trials however made the group due to her pre-pandemic efficiency and standing.

Previous for an Olympian at 31, the seven-time all-American instructed the Instances she’s “in the most effective form of [her] life.” Butts-Townsend holds the East Carolina information for the excessive bounce and lengthy bounce.

Whereas most individuals no less than casually tune in to the Olympics, having three athletes with robust ties to our metropolis provides Alexandrians further incentive to root for our hometown heroes. Although, many individuals don’t want the push to look at, because the Olympics have lengthy had an attract that persists regardless of intermittent controversies.

That enchantment stems partly from the onerous coaching most athletes put in over a few years and the unimaginable athleticism and health that these athletes show. Olympians really are bodily superheroes.

The attract additionally has one thing to do with the truth that Olympians have set and attained what to many look like unimaginable targets. They’re dwelling proof that seemingly far-fetched goals can come true. And the distinction connected to representing your nation on a world stage is a part of the Olympic enchantment and supreme.

IsLey, Lyles and Butts-Townsend additionally appear to be genuinely good people who find themselves simple to root for.

Because the three Alexandrians compete on the worldwide stage in Tokyo these subsequent few weeks, the eyes of the world, not simply Alexandria, shall be on them. We want them nicely – and hope they’ll come again to their hometown within the close to future to indicate off some hard-won medals.