Cloud County Track Trio Earns KJCCC Track Athlete of the Week Honors

A successful opening week to the season for the Cloud County Community College track and field teams has led to the trio of Tamara Thompson, Rafiatu Nuhu, and Mohamed Belhassen all earning Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference Indoor Track and Field Athlete of the Week honors on Wednesday, January 24th.

Thompson and Nuhu give the T-Birds a clean sweep of the awards for women's track and field in week two of the season while Belhassen earns the men's award alongside David Thid of Hutchinson Community College.

Thompson qualified for the NJCAA Indoor Track and Field National Championship meet in a pair of events at the Washburn University Rust Buster Classic, recording marks of 15.02 meters (49 ft. - 3.5 in.) in the weight throw and 12.64 meters (41 ft. - 5.75 in.) in the shot put. Both marks currently rank inside the top-10 of the NJCAA with the weight throw mark ranking eighth.

Nuhu qualified for the NJCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in three events at the Rust Buster Classic by individually placing second in the 200 meters with a time of 24.75 seconds and 400 meters time of 56.20 seconds before helping the 4x400 meter relay team win the event with a time of 3:54.89. The 4x400-meter relay time ranks fourth in the NJCAA while the 200-meter and 400-meter times both rank in the top 10 of the NJCAA.

Belhassen made his Cloud County debut this past Saturday at the Rust Buster Classic, placing fifth in the pole vault with an NJCAA qualifying mark of 4.66 meters (15 ft. - 3.5 in.) The mark was good enough for a fifth-place finish as the top individual from the NJCAA at the meet and ranks third on the NJCAA Indoor Track performance list this season as one of 12 qualified athletes in the event.