Baltimore Teacher Wins Under Armour's International Contest Encouraging Fitness
BALTIMORE (WJZ)-- Baltimore-based Under Armour recently launched its What's Beautiful campaign, challenging women to redefine what it means to be a female athlete.
Jessica Kartalija explains out of 10,000 submissions, the winner is from right here in Baltimore.
It's an international female-focused competition encouraging women to set fitness goals and achieve them.
Thirty-year-old Kaitlin Loftus-- a Baltimore City math teacher-- was one of 10,000 submissions. The plan: Inspire fourth- and fifth-grade girls at Edgewood Elementary School to run a mile.
"We would work out every day, Monday through Friday for 45 minutes. In the end, they were able to accomplish their goal of running a mile and it was awesome," Loftus said.
For 10 weeks, Loftus tracked their progress online, vying for the chance to be one of the new faces of Under Armour as one of their inspirational women. And it worked.
"You brought a whole new light to what Under Armour is all about and we are really excited to have you," Adrienne Lofton Shaw, the senior director of women's marketing for the company, said to Loftus.
Under Armour tells WJZ that Loftus' submission stood out the entire time. They said it was her selflessness that really made her shine.
She wins an Under Armour sponsorship deal that includes training and athletic gear for one year.
"The girls learned how to work together, they got along better in class, it was just good for the overall kid. This was so good," Loftus said.
Under Armour says the campaign was so successful that they will launch a similar one this fall.
The three other inspirational women selected are from Texas, Tennessee and Michigan.
