When sprinting is the subject at the Blettner house in Park Hills, the dinnertime conversation sometimes features playful trash-talking.
It doesn’t take much for Notre Dame senior Kate Blettner and her older by seven minutes fraternal twin brother, Covington Catholic senior Rhett Blettner, to tease each other. Rhett starts with his quicker times – a subject he brings up “occasionally.”
“Whenever track’s brought up,” he says. “We just laugh about the next meet that we might have together.”
Kate Blettner, meanwhile, doesn’t think there’s a contentious rivalry at all.
“I think it’s more like we support each other because we both want to see each other do really good and like get records or keep getting faster,” she says.
There’s a lot to talk about because the Blettners (both are sprinters) have done a lot for the Pandas and Colonels.
Start with Rhett: since the indoor season began in February, he has set four personal records: indoor 400 meters (50.80 seconds, good for third place at the Class 2A meet on March 5); indoor 200 (23.36); outdoor 200 (23.17); and outdoor 100 (11.56).
“This is only our second season with him,” CovCath track coach Jeremy Mosher said.
Mosher doesn’t know Kate Blettner well, but he believes both are “really good athletes.”
“And I think it’s so natural for siblings to see something that, you know, their brother, their sister doing and wanting, or just kind of thinking, ‘I can do that or I can do it better’,” Mosher said. “Anything you can do, I can do better.”
‘An interesting journey’
Kate Blettner has two indoor PRs – the indoor 400 (her 58.88 placed her fifth in the state 3A) and the indoor 200 (27.14). Outdoors, she ran 400 in 1:01.64 and the 200 in 29.50.
Notre Dame coach Matt Hollenkamp said Kate Blettner is “100% a sprinter.” It wasn’t always the case – as a sophomore in 2023, she ran the 800 and was a member of the cross country team.
“She’s had, really, an interesting journey,” Hollenkamp said. “… She has school records in middle distance in the 4×800.
“But we discovered – and I’ll say mostly, she discovered, I think – in the course of her career that she really gravitates towards being a sprinter, and that’s a great example of being self-aware and seeing where your strengths and skills lie.”
Hollenkamp calls the 400 Kate’s signature event. She qualified for the state Class 3A as a freshman in 2023, and Hollenkamp said she’s a six-time school record holder and a seven-time state medalist.
“It’s off the track with her leadership and how much she cares about her teammates,” Hollenkamp said.
Kate Blettner played basketball until her freshman year at Notre Dame.
“But then I decided to run for fun,” she said. “I guess I just wanted to try something new, so I started with cross country, but then I realized that track, I was really good at it, so I continued to do it.”
An outdoor preference
Rhett mostly runs the 400 and 200, though he tried the 100 this season. He prefers outdoor track – especially the 400.
“Because I played soccer, I’ve built up a good endurance, so I like using that to my advantage on the longer sprint.”
Rhett Blettner is proudest of an April 1 meet at CovCath because he won the 200 and was second in the 100.
“It was my first chance to run a 100, and my struggle has always been my start, so being able to work on that during the 100 was very beneficial to me,” he said. “The 23.17 in the 200, that was a great, great accomplishment so far because that had a little bit of a headwind as well.”
The state Class 3A meet May 23 at the University of Kentucky will be the end of the Blettners’ competitive track career. Kate plans to go to Auburn (a late choice over Clemson), while Rhett is headed for UK.
Rhett tries not to think about the end of the season.
“But I bet once region and (Northern Kentucky Athletic) Conference and state meet rolls around, then I’ll sort of think about it more,” he said, “but right now I’m just trying to enjoy the times I have with my team.”