Katie Dicus November 18, 2017– The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division III cross-country race will be held in Elsah, Illinois. Student athletes from all over the nation will be there to compete, including the deaf runner Otto Kingstedt.
Otto Kingstedt is a deaf student from Sweden who is currently studying at Rochester Institute of Technology. He is an established runner from a running family in Sweden; his mother placed 6th in the Chicago Marathon in 1991. Kingstedt became profoundly deaf at one and half years old from meningitis. However because his whole family were runners, he was raised to be a runner. With each practice he aims to better himself on the track and is looking forward to the race as potentially the first deaf Division III runner to compete nationally.
Kingstedt already broke RIT’s 21 year-old record for running the 10K by 14 seconds.
With his 29:38 time, he already set the Swedish Deaf record and is 31 seconds away from Timothy Butler’s World Deaf record of 29:07.
In Kingstedt’s first NCAA race, he placed 8th for the 10K and received All-American honors.
Source: RIT’s Otto Kingstedt Seeks First NCAA XC Title By Deaf Runner
