Julia Townsend of Malibu won the 5,000-meter race walk last weekend at the United States Youth Olympic Trials in Arlington, Texas. She had a new personal best time of 30:29.61 for the 12.5-lap race.
Townsend will now wait for the results from the South America, Caribbean, Mexico and Canada trials to see if she is one of the three fastest walkers who will represent the Americas (South, Central and North) in the first annual Youth Olympic Games in Singapore from Aug. 12-24. The Youth Olympics Games are for athletes born in 1993 and 1994, and will have competition in all 26 Olympic sports.
Townsend is a junior at Louisville High School in Woodland Hills and previously attended Our Lady of Malibu School and Webster Elementary School.