The Drill: Trojans' Gora sisters helped two relay teams to state

WORTHINGTON -- The 2022 high school track and field season is just a memory now, but it’s a great memory for the Worthington Trojans who were represented in 11 events at the Minnesota state Class AA competition.

The biggest story for WHS rested, arguably, on the boys side of the ledger, considering the guys placed in state True Team competition, finished first in their sectional, and captured the school’s best end-of-the-year performances.

It would be a shame, however, not to recollect some of the Trojans’ outstanding girls led by seniors Bailey Newman and Brooklyn Scheitel-Taylor, who concluded remarkable careers on the state stage. And neither should we forget a pair of twin-sister sophomores, Newyouman Gora and Pham Gora, who ran on two state meet relay teams.

The Gora sisters were a major part of the 4x100 and 4x200-meter relay foursomes, and in both of them Newyouman was the lead-off runner while Pham ran the third leg. It was Newyouman’s job to get the relays off to a good start. And it was Pham’s job to hold the lead, or in some cases where the lead might have been lost, to get it back again.

Besides track and field, the Goras also play basketball and soccer.

To most observers, running relays during the track and field season seems rather effortless. But it’s not, of course. Newyouman said that perhaps the hardest thing is toward the end of your leg where you’ve got to pass the baton to the next runner. It’s at the end of your leg where you feel the most tired, but you’ve got to fight through it and also be mentally able to handle the exchange of the baton.

The runner making the exchange has to use near-perfect timing to hand the baton forward. The runner taking up the baton has to leave her designated area at just the right moment, but not too fast and not too slow. And she has to thrust her hand behind her to grab the baton, all the while feeling for the baton while it’s placed in the palm. Try it sometime. It takes practice, practice, practice.

As we interviewed Newyouman and Pham for The Drill, we couldn’t resist asking them how similar they are, as twins. The answer is that they’re similar in some ways, but different in others.

You can watch the video online at www.dglobe.com . Here’s a sampling of the interview:

QUESTION: As twins, how similar are the two of you?

ANSWER: (Newyouman) “We’re twins, but we really don’t have the same personalities because, for instance, people say that I’m more of the quiet one while Pham is more of the talkative one -- the louder one, I guess you could say. … We’re also similar because we both enjoy the same things. For example, we both play the same sports, we both enjoy doing the same things together. Like our activities, we hang around the same group of people.”

QUESTION: You broke the school 4x100 relay record twice this year. Explain.

ANSWER: (Pham) “And it felt amazing, to be honest, because we’ve been talking about how we’d like to break the record. And it happened at the Trojan Relays, I believe. And we broke it there. We were all happy and I was actually crying because I didn’t think it was really going to happen like that.”

QUESTION: What’s the most unusual thing about you that some people don’t know?

ANSWER: (Pham) “I like to spend time with myself because I feel I can learn more and grow more just by doing things that I truly love instead of just being like a lot of other people.”

(Newyouman) “I actually enjoy cooking and baking in my free time.”