<DIV =story_line>All business on the track
<DIV =story_subline>Buhl exchange student is Times-News 2009 Boys Track Athlete of the Year
<DIV =story_byline>By David Bashore
Times-News writer
<DIV =story_story>When I first saw Bertrand Alcaraz Garcia in athletic competition, it was a bitterly cold Saturday in Buhl, where the Indians were handling Declo in a boys soccer match. Bundled up with long-sleeves, long leggings, gloves and headgear, Garcia scored a hat trick for Buhl.
The exchange student from Cartagena, Spain - a coastal city boasting a similar population to that found in Boise's city limits - cut a flighty, happy-go-lucky figure that fall day.
On the track, not so much: When it comes to sprinting, Garcia is all business.
He wants nothing more than to beat you when he gets into the blocks, and he'll let you know about it with a celebratory shout should he cross the finish line first. He did so four times at the Class 3A state meet, three times in individual races and once as the anchor of the 4x400 relay.
Garcia was always a talented runner, but he credited the coaching staff in Buhl for helping him to that next level.
"I kind of knew how to run, how to work my arms," Garcia said. "But when I got here, the coaches really helped me learn how to use strength and improve my technique. Coach (Andrew) Moretto showed me in the 400 to start fast, then take shorter steps in the curve and really work hard in the last 100 (meters)."
As one Buhl assistant coach told me at the district track meet: "We're sending him back with better times than he had coming here, so we must have done something right."
You can say that again. Garcia said he shaved six-tenths off his best 100 time in Spain, going under 11 seconds, and knocked about a full second off his 200 time.
Garcia said his best time at Buhl in the 400, an event he said he never ran until this season, is the best for all Spanish runners ages 15-17, and his 200 time is second best.
Those placements would almost certainly qualify him for July's IAAF World Youth Championships at Bressanone, Italy, if the Spanish federation accepted them. But the powers that be would rather see his blazing speed for themselves than rely on official times from little ol' Idaho, half a world away.
From Garcia's standpoint, four gold medals are hard to argue with, but it is what it is. If he can arrange to return to Spain in late June - he said his current schedule is to leave in late July -and try to qualify, he could yet compete.
The Olympics remain a dream, he says - too many hurdles to overcome before he can start to think of that as a reality.
Garcia's focus when he returns to Spain, where he runs for the Universidad Catolica de San Antonio Murcia track club, is to keep the balance between studies and track. That balance could lead him back to Idaho, a place about which he speaks with nothing short of the utmost regard.
"The weather is a little crazy (compared to Cartagena) but I love it here in Buhl," Garcia said. "I'd really like to come back, and maybe run at ISU in Pocatello. If I can get a scholarship, I'd love to come back here."
Be it in the Olympic Games or the Big Sky Championships, or anywhere in between, this might not be the last we see of this Spanish phenom.