{"id":79901,"date":"2025-05-16T16:28:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T22:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/embracing-change-dolores-wright-celebrating-her-winding-path-to-hurdles-success-2\/"},"modified":"2025-05-16T16:28:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T22:28:54","slug":"embracing-change-dolores-wright-celebrating-her-winding-path-to-hurdles-success-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/embracing-change-dolores-wright-celebrating-her-winding-path-to-hurdles-success-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Embracing change: Dolores\u2019 Wright celebrating her winding path to hurdles success"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dolores
Dolores senior Coralea Wright flies over a hurdle at the San Juan Basin League championships in Ignacio in April on her way to a league title in the 100 hurdles, and a new school record in the process. Wright will compete in the 2A state championships in the event. Joel Priest\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

DOLORES \u2013 It\u2019s seldom a direct path for a track athlete to find their way to the hurdles.<\/p>\n

For Dolores High School senior Coralea Wright, her journey required plenty of resiliency to the many different changes thrown her way. That, and plenty of flexibility \u2013 literally.<\/p>\n

A gymnast in the early years of her life, Wright became accustomed to adjusting to the constant motion, stretching her body to its limits, and using lightning-quick reflexes to accommodate for changing circumstances. All those skills have paid off in her adopted passion, taking on the 10 barriers in the 100-meter hurdles, where Wright now sits at the top of the charts in Dolores track and field history in the event.<\/p>\n

Not too shabby for someone who hadn\u2019t even tried the event prior to this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had never run the event before, and in the third meet of the season, I was just like \u2018I\u2019ll give it a shot,\u2019 and I ended up being good at it,\u201d Wright said.<\/p>\n

Since taking on the event, the Bears standout has done nothing but impress, dominating her way to a San Juan Basin League double victory in the 100 and 300 hurdles, and qualifying for the 2A state championships in the shorter distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think my gymnastics helps me at different levels \u2013 being flexible, explosive and knowing routines,\u201d said Wright. Those skills manifest themselves as she has refined her three-step cadence between each hurdle \u2013 something she takes from her favorite gymnastics discipline, the uneven bars. \u201cBoth in the bars and in hurdles, I need to be able to rely on training \u2013 if you mess up one part then you mess up the whole thing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She favors the 100 over the 300, but it was in the latter event in which she got her feet wet during her junior year that bred the idea of tackling the 100 hurdles in the first place. \u201cThere\u2019s a sense of accomplishment after finishing a really good race \u2013 that feeling of \u2018I just did that,\u2019\u201d said Wright.<\/p>\n

All these records might not have happened, were it not for a couple of major life-altering events for Wright. A significant hip injury several years ago tabled her gymnastics ambitions, forcing her to reevaluate her athletic future. Then, she and her family moved to Montezuma County from California after her sophomore year of high school, so she faced the added curve ball of finding her niche in a new community.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy coaches and teammates have been really good support systems,\u201d said Wright. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve liked being in a small town \u2013 I\u2019ve gotten to know everyone, and they\u2019ve made me feel included and part of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for her injury \u2013 it served as inspiration for her future ambitions \u2013 Wright looks to attend Arizona State University this upcoming fall with plans to pursue a degree in nursing and kinesiology, hoping to help others get back to living their lives much like her medical team helped her recover from her hip injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I broke my hip and I couldn\u2019t walk, there was a fear that I\u2019d lose mobility in my leg because it had stopped healing, but I got so much reassurance from my physical therapist \u2013 and seeing how much he helped me, it made me really passionate about helping others,\u201d said Wright.<\/p>\n

After shocking herself with an amazing time drop at the Bob Archibeque Invitational in Cortez \u2013 over a second improvement on her previous best and the first of her school-record-setting performances \u2013 Wright has continued to blister the event. She reset her own record at the SJBL meet, and then again at the Montrose Invitational, and her mark of 17.05 seconds placed her on a short list of the state\u2019s top hurdlers.<\/p>\n

Her race on Thursday afternoon at Jefferson County Stadium ended with another sub-18 second performance, as Wright crossed the line of her final race in a Bear uniform in 17.74 seconds, good for 17th in the meet.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t be Wright\u2019s first appearance on the state stage \u2013 she ran as part of the DHS barrier-breaking cross-country team in 2023 that became the first team in school history to qualify for the state cross-country championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just remember taking it all in,\u201d said Wright. \u201cAll the nerves, all the adrenaline \u2013 then giving it my all. And that\u2019s what I wanted to do with this track meet.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took a lot of adjustment, but her place in the community will stick with Wright wherever her next steps take her.<\/p>\n

\u201cDolores has given me a lot of opportunities, and I\u2019ve been so happy to do this my senior year \u2013 to end strong,\u201d said Wright, as graduation looms on Friday, May 23 and her exciting journey continues thereafter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

making the most of her time at DHS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,39,28,37,36],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-79901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-dove-creek-high-school","tag-headlines","tag-mancos-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79901"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=79901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}