Success in a flash

Known for her blazing speed since she was in the second grade, Park sophomore Elan Hilaire has made the most of her talent.

It has the makings of an urban legend.

A second-grader is pulled out of her class and asked to race a gym class of about 20 fifth-graders for a little more than 400 meters. The second-grader obliges and wins by about 10 meters.

A myth, right?

Not when that second-grader is a girl named Elan Hilaire.

"It was just a race for everyone to see who was the fastest," recalled Hilaire, now a sophomore at Park. "Since it was a lot of us at the start, I just took off really fast, and that was it. I just kept running."

"We remember it because we heard all about it," said Kelly Lehto, Hilaire's second-grade teacher at Wellwood International School in Pikesville. "We were amazed that she could beat all of them."

Since that race, Hilaire, 15, has used her speed to its fullest potential. The owner of four national records for her age group in the 200- and 400-meter sprints, she set a national freshman record in the 400 at the Simplot Games last winter. She was a member of the U.S. squad at the World Youth Championships in Morocco and earned a gold medal.

This season, Hilaire has already established two sophomore records in the 300 and long jump at the Bishop Loughlin Games and currently owns the sixth-fastest times in the nation in the 300 and 400.

"It's pretty exciting, I guess, looking at it from an outside view. But for me, there are so many other things I'd like to accomplish," she said. "To the people I look up to in terms of this sport, it really takes a lot more than what I have done to be great in this sport. I really feel like I haven't started yet."

Getting started was quite an adventure for Hilaire. Her teachers at Wellwood International, an elementary school in the Baltimore County public school system that boasts a French immersion program, recognized her gift at an early stage.

"It was apparent in the second grade that she was an outstanding athlete, watching her run on the playground and jump rope with her friends and how she handles herself as a runner," recalled William Burke, a former teacher who paired with Lehto to teach Hilaire's second-grade class. "She would spend hours running around recess and never tire. And you could see it was something that brought her a lot of happiness."

But when the teachers hinted at Hilaire's talent to her mother she was not impressed.

"I'd say thank you, but I wasn't quite sure what they were getting at," Anita Hilaire said with a laugh. "A number of times, it would start to annoy me because I would come in asking about her academic work."

When one teacher told Anita Hilaire that her daughter "runs really well," she responded, "All kids run really well."

After Elan Hilaire's memorable victory against the fifth-graders, Anita Hilaire said the teachers at Wellwood gave her sign-up sheets for a local track and field club called the Pikesville Cheetahs.

In her first Amateur Athletic Union national meet in Cleveland, 9-year-old Elan Hilaire set a national record for her age group in the 400 when she crossed the finish line in 1 minute, 5.86 seconds.

"I still hadn't realized what I had done," she said. "I figured, `Well, hopefully, I won,' but I didn't really know what it meant, and I still didn't know that I had set the national record until someone had yelled, `You set the national record!' And then I just burst into tears."

Aside from one year spent in the Czech Republic when her father, Max Hilaire, who chairs the political science department at Morgan State, was asked to teach international law and relations at the University of Prague, Hilaire has been a familiar face on the winner's podium.

When she was 12, she became the first girl to win all three sprints - the 100, 200 and 400 - at the AAU Nationals. At 14, she took the 400 at the USA Youth Nationals and was invited to join the U.S. team competing at the World Youth Championships in Morocco last summer.

Although Hilaire did not qualify for an individual event, she earned a gold medal as a member of the triumphant medley relay squad. This winter, her times of 40.02 seconds in the 300 at the Bishop Loughlin Games and 56.16 seconds in the 400 at the Hispanic Games are both ranked in the top 10 nationally, according to dyestat.com, a Web site devoted to track and field and cross country.

"Elan Hilaire's talent and speed is unquestioned from 400 meters on down," said Mount de Sales coach and athletic director Gene Williams. "Her freshman-year progression was outstanding on the national and international level, and that experience should only help her improve."

Hilaire's achievements caught the attention of Sports Illustrated For Kids, which profiled her as the fastest 14-year-old in the country. The magazine visited Park School and shut down the gymnasium for a photo shoot.

"After the whole photo shoot was finished, I just went back and ate lunch, and people would ask, `Who was that? What were they doing?' " Hilaire said. "I was like, `Oh, that's just Sports Illustrated for Kids.' And their mouths just dropped."