Nova Ojutkangas wins OVC Female Athlete of the Year after winning conference meet

For the fifth time ever and for the second year in a row the Ohio Valley Conference Female Athlete of the Year is a Redhawk. Redshirt sophomore and cross country star Nova Ojutkangas takes home this year’s honor after former cross country athlete Hannah Eastman won the award at Southeast a year ago.

Ojutkangas is an international student from France in her first year at Southeast Missouri State University. Since stepping on campus in the fall Ojutkangas has seen rapid success as she has won four of her first five meets, including breaking the school record for the 6k at the Angel Mounds Invite in mid-October. She is also a four-time OVC runner of the week and recently won the Female Athlete of the Year award for the conference.

However, Ojutkangas is no stranger to success in the running world. Before coming to the United States she was the Swedish under-20 Champion in cross country and the French under-18 Champion in the 10k in road running. In addition to those two awards she also qualified for the under-20 Nordic cross country championship and the under-20 European Championship in the 5000m race.

Head Coach Ryan Lane says that the success she has internationally has gone a long way in her training and has prepared her well for the collegiate level of competition.

“She’s had a few years of high-level training back at home. So she’s not your normal first time NCAA runner. The work that she did back at home set her up really well for us to transition into our train training program… It's been a really seamless transition,” Lane said. “In my career she probably has the best recovery rate that I’ve dealt with in an athlete. Her heart rate and lactate levels normalize much quicker than anybody I’ve worked with before. In Layman’s terms, it means she can run fast for a longer period of time.”

For Ojutkangas, her mindset is simple when she is preparing for a race. She tries to live stress-free and rely on her training. She knows that no matter where she is competing, she always has a good chance to win.

“I try not to stress so much. I think more like a workout cause I manage to do good during the workout so I try to do the same during the race” Ojutkangas said.

Although she has had success at the international level as well as early on in her collegiate career, she still took a moment to recognize the honor that comes with being named the OVC Female Athlete of the Year. She admitted that she was unaware that this award even existed, but when she heard the news that she won she was glad to receive it and she said it felt like all her training had paid off.

Even with her early success, Ojustkangas says that all the awards and first place finishes actually help motivate her to become an even more polished runner. She also credits her teammates for helping push her to be better, something that was new to her since coming to SEMO.

“I think with all the success it just motivates me to do better. In France I train alone. So now mentally I am more happy to win so I think that is why I run better now. With a team it’s always easier to learn and it motivates myself to go run everyday. So I think the most important part here is like it helped me to find the motivation to run and to be happy with it” Ojutkangas said.

Ojutkangas will compete at the 2024 Midwest Regional Meet on November 15th in Peoria, Illinois with hopes to place within the top-25 in order to receive a bid to compete on the national level.