Fast Women: Kate Grace gives herself a shot
The 5,000m and 800m finals will take place tonight.
Issue 298, sponsored by Brooks
During the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials, I’ll be sending out newsletters more frequently, so I can cover all the action in a timely manner. Fast Women will return to its regular once-a-week schedule next Monday.
Kate Grace dives into the Olympic Trials 800m final
The women’s distance action at the Trials will really get going tonight, with the steeplechase prelims at 8:59 p.m. ET, the 5,000m final at 10:09, and the 800m final right after, at 10:32. All of tonight’s races will be on both NBC and Peacock.
Regardless of how the 800m final goes, Kate Grace produced one of the more memorable moments of the Trials so far when she fell across the finish line in her 800m semifinal and earned a spot in the final. You can watch the full race here. Though she had some scrapes, she said afterwards that she was not seriously injured.
Grace, 35, has one of the fastest PRs in the field, and plenty of international racing experience. But when she opened her season last month, she was coming off of a nearly three-year break from competition due to long Covid, injury, and having her first child.
Grace is approaching the season in an unconventional manner, mostly coaching herself, and trying to work smarter, not harder. She has been documenting the journey on her Instagram account; along the way, she has become a sentimental favorite in the 800m. And in the semis, she ran like someone who could have an impact in the final. Coming into the Trials, her best time this season was a 2:00.68, but last night she ran 1:58.97 and secured her Olympic standard. Talk about putting it all together when it counts. (I’ve enjoyed her post-race recaps; here’s what she had to say last night.)
Athing Mu won the heat in 1:58.84 and said she felt better than she had in the first round. It’s clear Mu isn’t at the top of her game at the moment, but she doesn’t need to be to make the U.S. team. After the race, she told reporters that her hamstring injury happened in late April. And when Jonathan Gault asked her when she got back to running, she said, “It’s been a couple of weeks,” with a look on her face that suggested there’s a lot more she’s not saying.
Heading into the Trials, I was concerned about Raevyn Rogers, who had run 2:04 and 2:06 in her last two 800s. But she has an uncanny ability to pull it together in the big races, and she has run her two fastest times of the season at the Trials, including winning her semifinal heat in 2:01.08. I was also concerned about Ajee’ Wilson, and though she ran her two best races of the season as well, she just missed out on advancing to the final.
Allie Wilson won the third semifinal heat in 2:00.29. She hasn’t run a flashy time this year, but she has looked really good in Eugene. And after bowing out in the semis at USAs last year, she’s thrilled to be back in the final.
Also in the final will be Nia Akins, Sage Hurta-Klecker, LSU’s Michaela Rose, Stanford’s Juliette Whittaker, and Kristie Schoffield. I can imagine the race playing out any number of ways, all of them thrilling. (Olympic Trials results)
Elle St. Pierre, Elise Cranny lead the way in the 5,000m
Their prelims couldn’t have been more different, but Elle St. Pierre and Elise Cranny won their respective 5,000m heats and lead the qualifiers for tonight’s final. In heat one, Parker Valby set the pace and St. Pierre didn’t take over until less than 400m to go. St. Pierre covered her last kilometer in 2:50.95 and the last 400m in 64.23 to win in 15:13.83. Karissa Schweizer looked ready to run a good final in second (15:15.42) and Valby took third (15:17.56). (Race highlights)
The second heat was the tougher one. By the time the pack hit 1600m in 5:45, it was clear that all of the time qualifiers were going to come from the first heat. That was great news for Taylor Roe, Katie Wasserman, Lauren Gregory, and Molly Born, who advanced on time, and bad news for most of the athletes in heat two.
Someone asked me why the whole field let the race go slow. The top athletes knew they could finish well off of any pace, and I thought Maggie Montoya, who did not advance, summed it up well for many of the other runners in the field. “Confident I could have made the final based off the first heat…but not confident enough to take the lead to make it an honest race,” she wrote in an Instagram story. “Learning experience but the regret of not taking the chance hurts a little, too.”
With about two laps to go, there were eight runners fighting for six spots, when Natosha Rogers dropped off the back of the pack first, and then Abbey Cooper was the next to go. Both of them have had some great moments at Hayward Field, but this was one of the tougher ones. Rogers is also entered in the 10,000m, but Cooper’s meet is over.
Cranny covered the last 1600m in 4:29.31 and her last 400m in 62.79 to win in 16:02.33. It was impressive how much the race spread out, given that the top six were all together with one lap remaining, but Ella Donaghu (second, 16:02.84), Rachel Smith (third 16:06.92), Katelyn Tuohy (fourth, 16:09.22), Josette Andrews (fifth, 16:10.23), and Emily Infeld (sixth, 16:11.64) all advanced to the final.
Elizabeth Leachman, 16, who just finished her sophomore year of high school, was a fan favorite. She fought hard late in the race, leading the chase pack, before fading a bit over the last two laps. She finished 13th in heat two and 26th overall in 16:36.67. I’m pretty certain Leachman is the first high school girl ever to run the 5,000m at the Olympic Trials. I felt less enthusiastic about her Trials participation after hearing her say she was running through “a little” stress reaction in her femur, though.
I appreciate that Cranny spent more than 10 minutes talking to reporters after the race. She seemed relaxed and confident, which can go far at a meet like this one. She said she chose the 1500m as the second half of her double because it sounded more fun than running a 10,000m. She said that if she makes the team in both events, she hasn’t yet decided what she will do. Cranny talked about lowering her mileage in the past year and doing more cross training. She also mentioned that she has added double threshold workouts to her training (and Schweizer, her former Bowerman Track Club teammate, said the same).
It was great to see Tuohy, who was finally making her professional debut, not only line up but advance. She said that after running the NCAA Cross Country Championships last November, she wasn’t able to run consistently again until late April or early May. Initially her hamstring was the main problem, but she tried to return to running too quickly and also developed back and IT band problems. She said she’s still not sure what kind of shape she’s in—maybe she’ll find out tonight—and she called the prelim “probably the hardest 16-minute 5K of my life,” referring to the race’s slow start and fast finish.
And I appreciated that despite her disappointment, Cooper stopped to talk to reporters. She said that she strained her calf while running 15:11 in the 5,000m at the Bryan Clay Invitational in April, and things were touch and go for almost two months. And then two weeks ago, she felt something snap in her Achilles. But she’s feeling healthy now, so she’s hoping to do more racing this summer.
I’m expecting tonight to come down to some version of St. Pierre vs. Cranny, but I love a good surprise, so I’d be happy to be wrong.
Thanks to Brooks for sponsoring Fast Women this month
I’m thankful to Brooks for everything they do for the sport, including supporting some fantastic women who are racing at the Trials. As you read above, last night, Nia Akins of the Seattle-based Brooks Beasts secured her spot in the 800m final. Her last couple of seasons have gone so well that it’s easy to forget that her last Trials, her first championship as a pro, ended with a tough fall in the final.
The Penn grad has put that behind her, and she has made incredible progress since signing with Brooks four years ago. In 2023, she had a breakthrough season, winning the USATF Indoor and Outdoor titles in the 800m, and represented the U.S. at last summer’s world championships, where she finished sixth in the final.
Akins is also a budding musician and she told RUN that music is a positive distraction from running at times. In the fall, her goal is to release a full album. But first, she’ll test her limits this season. You can follow her here, and the Brooks Beasts here, and I loved this video about Akins that FloTrack released last week.
If you’re in Eugene, remember to stop by the Brooks Hyperion House; you can see a schedule of events and RSVP here.
Other Trials notes
Thank goodness Sha’Carri Richardson won the 100m final and is headed to the Olympic Games, because I imagine NBC and various brands had a lot riding on her making it to Paris and becoming one of the major stars of the Games. It’s particularly gratifying to see her make the team after she lost her spot in 2021. And for her to do so alongside her training partners, Melissa Jefferson and Twanisha Terry, is a great story. It was delightful to watch their reactions after the race. (I have less enthusiasm about their coach, Dennis Mitchell, who admitted to doping during his own running career.) Richardson’s winning time, 10.71, is the fastest in the world this year.
On her final jump of the competition, former University of Florida star Jasmine Moore won the triple jump with a leap of 14.26m (46’ 9.5”). Moore, who went pro last summer, made her second Olympic team, while Keturah Orji (second, 14.22m/46’ 8”) qualified for her third and final Games. Orji announced at the start of the season that this will be her final season of competition. Tori Franklin earned the final spot on the team (13.72m/45’ 0.25”) and I love this video of the three of them after the race.
It’s too late at night for me to put together any coherent thoughts about the 400m, but it was great to see Kendall Ellis run the race of her life to win the race after finishing fourth in 2021. She’ll be joined in the open 400m in Paris by Aaliyah Butler and Alexis Holmes. And after the race, Ellis told the story of getting stuck in a porta potty before the 400m semifinals.
I was really impressed by Sue McDonald, 61, who won the masters 800m, an exhibition event, in 2:22.81. Michelle Rohl, 58, who will compete in the 20K race walk later in the meet, finished second in 2:24.90.
Grand Slam Track aims to revolutionize the sport
At an event in Los Angeles last week, sprinting legend Michael Johnson officially launched his new venture, Grand Slam Track, and announced that Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is the first athlete to sign on. You can read many of the details here. Johnson claims GST is going to revolutionize the sport, and I hope it does. They’ll be putting a lot of money into track (and not field), and it will be interesting to see if their model is financially sustainable.
Things I haven’t seen anyone address: Will they be doing any of their own drug testing? (This makes me think of the World Marathon Majors’ original intent and their doping problems.) And what happens if someone gets hurt? I’m not sure I’m sold on the idea of watching the same people run a 5,000m and a 3,000m in the course of three days, but I hope the format wins me over. I think the two-events-per-meet format raises several potential problems.
It will also be interesting to see if they can get fans to show up en masse to the U.S. meets, something with which a lot of events have struggled. Johnson announced that one of the meets will be in Los Angeles, and Runner’s World reported that GST will target New York, the UK, and Jamaica for the other three meets. I’m glad someone is trying something new, it’s been good to see GST get mainstream attention, and it’s going to be very interesting to see what comes of it.
Other News
UCLA has hired Olympic gold medalist Joanna Hayes, who is a member of the school’s athletic hall of fame, as its next director of track & field and cross country. Most recently, Hayes worked as an assistant coach at the University of Southern California. Women are extremely underrepresented in director roles, so it’s great to see one more in the NCAA.
Cindy Kuzma wrote a great piece about Elle St. Pierre for Runner’s World. I love the image of New Balance Boston coach Mark Coogan pushing St. Pierre’s son, Ivan, through a cemetery in a stroller while the team warms up and cools down.
Thanks in part to her YouTube channel, Allie Ostrander is a fan favorite heading into the Trials. This video she shared last week was a good one. She’ll run the steeplechase prelims tonight.
Athing Mu talked about some of the challenges of being so successful so early in her career last week with The Guardian and Sports Illustrated.
With two runner-up finishes at the recent NCAA Championships, where Parker Valby was the only athlete to beat her, Hilda Olemomoi could potentially take over as the NCAA’s best distance runner next year. Some people were surprised to see her enter the transfer portal at the end of the season, but last week’s announcement that she’s transferring from Alabama to Florida makes sense. She will reunite with her original college coaches, Will and Samantha Palmer, who made the same move at the start of 2023.
It’s been fun following Teagan Schein-Becker’s rise in the NCAA, especially because she attended Rider University, which isn’t one of the traditional track powerhouses. She announced last week that she has joined the Brooks Beasts. Related: Georgetown’s Chloe Scrimgeour has signed an NIL deal with Brooks.
BYU’s Meghan Hunter was named a Honda Inspiration Award Finalist, and this touching video explains why.
Leah Falland’s steeplechase fall was one of the more heartbreaking moments of the 2021 Olympic Trials. It was nice to see this (mostly non-running) update from her last week; a lot can change in three years.
I listened to two great new running-related books that launched last week. The first was The Price She Pays: Confronting the Hidden Mental Health Crisis in Women’s Sports—from the Schoolyard to the Stadium, from Tiffany Brown, Katie Steele, and Erin Strout. It’s not solely about running, but many of the anecdotes coming from the sport. It’s a sobering read about many of the pitfalls girls and women face in sports, and how to increase the chances of avoiding them. Though the book is about girls and women, it’s a great read for parents of athletes of all genders, as well as anyone who works with athletes. And for more of Steele’s harrowing story (she worked with Alberto Salazar and Dr. Jeffrey Brown), she was on the Women’s Running Stories podcast last week.
The second book was Maggie Mertens’ Better Faster Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women. Mertens provides an interesting history of women’s running and ties it to present-day issues in the sport. And she presents the material in a manner that will appeal to runners and non-runners alike.
Additional Results
At the Meeting International d'Athlétisme de la Province de Liège, Ethiopia’s Marta Alemayo, 16, won the 5,000m in an incredible 14:39.61. Alemayo burst onto the international scene with a win at the World Athletics U20 Cross Country Championships in March. In second, Winfred Mutile Yavi set a Bahraini record of 14:41.99. Samiyah Hassan Nour of Djibouti had a breakthrough run (third, 14:49.00), and Australia’s Izzi Batt-Doyle (fourth, 14:49.75) also dipped under the Olympic standard. (Results)
Ethiopia’s Likinia Amebaw won the 5,000m at Track Night Vienna in 14:40.16, a PR. Margaret Chelimo Kipkemboi (second, 14:40.38) ran under the Olympic standard, and thanks to her third-place finish at the Kenyan Trials, she’ll now have the option of doubling in Paris (she’s also on the 10,000m team). And Burundi’s Francine Niyomukunzi also ran under the standard (14:44.97). Australia’s Bendere Oboya won the 800m in 1:58.56. (Results)
Ethiopia’s Freweyni Hailu won the 1500m at the Irena Szewinska Memorial in Poland, running 3:58.59. Back in fifth place, the University of Oregon’s Klaudia Kazimierska, who has been coming on strong late in the season, ran 4:01.89 in front of a home crowd. She took an incredible 4.35 seconds off of her PR and dipped under the Olympic standard. She now has the fastest time by anyone in the NCAA this season. (Results)
Australia’s Catriona Bisset won the 800m at Meeting Madrid, running 1:59.17. Great Britain’s Melissa Courtney-Bryant won the 1500m in 4:03.50. (Results)
Annie Frisbie had a big half marathon breakthrough at the Garry Bjorklund Half, which accompanies Grandma’s Marathon, winning the race in 1:07:32. She shaved 2:40 off of her PR and 1:54 off of the course record. (Fun Frisbie fact: Her marathon debut wasn’t the 2:26:18 she ran at the NYC Marathon in 2021, she actually ran Grandma’s in 2011, finishing the race in 3:42:32 at age 14.) Dakotah Lindwurm also ran a big PR, finishing second in 1:08:04. Volha Mazuronak of Belarus won the marathon in 2:23:52 and Molly Bookmyer was the top American, finishing third in 2:30:16. (Half marathon results | Marathon results)
Ethiopia’s Melknat Wudu won the Boston 10K, running in 31:15 in wet conditions. Most of the top U.S. 10,000m runners are currently in Eugene, or getting ready to head there, but not all of them. Emily Durgin was the top U.S. finisher, taking eighth in a solid 31:51. (Results)
Podcast Highlights
Partners Nikki Hiltz and Emma Gee, who are both running at the Trials, were on the Ali on the Run Show. The episode went much deeper than I was expecting, inspired in part by Inside Out 2. It was tough to hear Hiltz’s (understandable) reaction to the Hayward Field crowd booing young trans runner Aayden Gallagher at the Oregon state meet, but I appreciated how open they both were during this conversation. Gee runs the steeplechase prelims tonight, with the hope of making it to the final.
I appreciated the chance to hear Mark Coogan’s thoughts on having three runners (Elle St. Pierre, Emily Mackay, and Heather MacLean) in contention for spots on the U.S. Olympic 1500m squad, on the Citius Mag podcast.
If you like drama, you might like this episode of For the Kudos, where the Australian women’s Olympic marathon squad talks about all of the controversy surrounding the selection of the team. The whole situation sounds very uncomfortable to me, like an unnecessary distraction on the way to the Olympic Games.
Marielle Hall has a new podcast called Unexpected Curves and last week, she talked to Ajee’ Wilson, who doesn’t make many podcast appearances. (As of now, it’s only available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.)
Additional Episodes: Camille Herron on I’ll Have Another | Clare Gallagher and Brittany Peterson discussed their legendary duel at Western States in 2019 on The Trail Network Podcast | Sprinter McKenzie Long on Citius Mag | Javelin thrower Kara Winger discussed her unexpected return to T&F on C Tolle Run
Thanks again to Brooks for making this Olympic Trials coverage possible. And to Gregorio Denny for the fantastic photos he’s taking for Fast Women in Eugene (see more on Instagram). I’m also grateful to those of you who help keep Fast Women going with your support on Venmo and Patreon. Have a great Monday, and with two big finals tonight, you’ll be hearing from me again soon.
Alison
I really appreciate the great coverage and all your hard work every week!
Great trials recap! Exciting start can’t wait for the rest!