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In November she switched to a sports rehab center in Wichita, about 30 minutes from Hesston. There she began using more weights and was soon able to walk on her own.<br>She returned to school in September for seventh grade, but at first Christi couldn t do any sports. During the spring she went out for track and shot put, and ran the 100-meter for her last meet. She was slow, it was awkward, but she did it.<br>That was the picture when BFS first caught up with Christi five years ago. She was a determined girl fighting the odds, but no one knew if she would make it. Catching up with her now, just beginning her senior year, we re proud to see her spirit still pushing her on the athletic field and to learn she is not only fully recovered from the accident, but stronger for the effort.<br><br>Better Than Ever<br><br>In the summer, only a year after her accident, Christi began running well.  I was doing everything, she says.  If a normal person saw me they couldn t tell anything happened. I was playing volleyball, basketball, track and gymnastics.<br> The doctors actually say my back is stronger because of the bone they took from my hip to fuse my spine. I have no side effects, none. It s amazing. Sometimes I forget the whole accident happened. <br>Pressed on the subject, she admits to some weakness in the right leg.  I need to compensate with the left, she says,  but I m working on fixing that in the run. It doesn t stop me, but it is a technical point I need to work on. <br>Christi attained her present height and weight of 5-foot-3 and 130 pounds early, and gymnastics gave way to track and the pole vault. She began working at Wichita Extreme Athletics with brothers Randy and Darrin Bryant. The center works with dance, tumbling and cheerleading, but because both brothers vaulted in high school, they also coached vaulters. Randy has been to two Olympics and coached in Australia and Mexico. The two trainers are highly technical in their approach, and they believe that Christi has the raw talent and drive to make her mark in the vault.<br>Christi s best vault at press time was 12.1 feet. She feels that won t stand for long as she enters her senior year. With her scholastic achievements, she s confident she ll receive a scholarship in the vault or in basketball. She s spet, Dragila was able to participate in the Trials on April 20 in Lawrence, Kansas. She really put on a show, setting an American record of 13 6 1/2 . Although she didn t get to compete in the Olympics, she did get to compete in the European circuit that summer. The following year she continued her steady progress and won the World Indoor Championships with a mark of 14 5 1/4 , a vault that tied the world record.<br>To fulfill her potential and achieve her goal of winning the Olympics, Dragila decided to stay in Pocatello to train under Nielsen and work towards a masters degree in health education at ISU. She also works as an assistant track coach, training the vaulters and heptathletes. Her husband, Brent, is also an ISU student, majored in criminal justice and sociology.<br>One of her major competitors is Emma George of Australia, a former circus acobat, who is the current world record holder at 15 1 1/4 . With the Olympics being held in George s home country, Dragila knows she needs to work even harder to bring home the gold. To win it, she says it will probable take vaulting as high as 16 feet, which she thinks is definitely within her reach by then.<br><br> <br>Anything <br>You Can Do. . . .<br><br>Just as Dragila s vaulting ability has improved, so has the popularity of the event.  I had heard that high school girls were starting to do it in California, and a couple states were trying to push it. She also heard that many athletes were considering going to court about it because the schools thought they couldn t afford