Their sights are set

Amber Weber started her high school career this month, but already she knows where she wants to go following graduation in four years.

London. England. As in the 2012 Paralympic Games.

A standout wheelchair athlete, the CV freshman missed the chance to compete in the Paralympic Games in Beijing by one.

“I was 18th on a list where the top 17 went,” she said. “I watched some of the competition on my computer – it hasn’t been televised yet. It was incredible to watch these people that I know competing like that.

“When people find out that I was that close to going to Beijing, they get really excited. One person even asked me for my autograph.”

Freshman teammate Emily Owens also plans to make travel arrangements for London in 2012.

The pair, who compete for Central Valley in cross country and plan to join the track team in the spring, have the kind of pedigree that would make betting against them reaching Fleet Street a bad wager.

At the 2008 National Junior Disability Games at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J., the duo combined to win enough gold medals to make Michael Phelps look like a dog-paddler.

Owens won two gold medals, a silver medal and a bronze medal in the shot, discus, javelin and club; earned seven gold medals in the 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500 and two relays, a gold medal in the pentathlon, a bronze medal in 3-on-3 basketball and set six national records in track and pentathlon.

Weber earned five gold medals on the track (in the 100, 200, 400, 400 relay, 800 medley relay and pentathlon) and added silvers in the 800, 1,500 and 5,000 and in 3-on-3 basketball.

Combined, Team St. Luke’s, the sports team created by St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute for children with physical disabilities, sent 15 athletes to New Jersey in July, bringing home 134 medals and breaking 35 national records.

“I got involved with Team St. Luke’s in 2003,” Weber explained. “I went to an event that they now call No Limits. I was introduced to wheelchair basketball and immediately got involved with track and field.

“At first I really thought that basketball was going to be my sport – the one sport I wanted to really concentrate on. And then I discovered track. Now, I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have track and field.”

Weber was diagnosed with a form of cancer called neuroblastoma when she was just 6 months old.

“It’s a form of cancer that attacks the nerves,” she said. “In my case, it attacked my spine and affected the nerve function going down to my legs.”

Owens was born nine weeks premature. A bruise to her brain eventually led to cerebral palsy.

“I wasn’t diagnosed with CP until I was a year old,” she said. “I didn’t learn to walk until I was 6. At first I had one of those big, old, heavy wheelchairs. Now I walk most of the time and only use my chair for longer distances. I have to be careful walking through the halls between classes because, with CP, I don’t have the best balance and, since people don’t always watch where they’re walking, I can get knocked down pretty easily.

“Everyone is always so shocked when I get knocked down, but most of the time I’m laughing because it happens all the time and I always know they didn’t knock me down on purpose.”

Owens came to St. Luke’s through Weber.

“My dad is the cross country coach at Greenacres Middle School,” Owens said. “Amber was competing for him and had trouble with a wheel on her chair. She told him to call Teresa Skinner from Team St. Luke’s.

“Once he got on the phone with Teresa, he started asking her about me.”

Both say their involvement with Team St. Luke’s was transformational.

“Just being involved with a group of people who understand what you’re going through was really important to me,” Weber said. “We may not all have the same disability, but we do share a lot of the same challenges.”

Joining the CV cross country team, too, has been an important step.

“Being part of a team like this, where everyone loves and encourages each other, is pretty incredible,” Owens said.

“It’s great to be part of a team that’s just girls,” Weber added. “It’s a girl thing.”

Both are off to a strong start for the Bears.

“We had a team meeting the night before our first cross country meet,” Weber said. “We all set our individual goals for the year. My goal for the season was to finish in under 15 minutes before the season was over. I finished in 15:25. Now I want to go 14:00 by the end of the season.”

“I can’t keep up with Amber, speed-wise,” Owens said. “But we competed against North Central, and they have the third wheelchair athlete in the GSL. She got me at the end, but I stayed with her and drafted off her. At the end, I dug deeper and got by her at the end. That felt incredible.”