First place winner Grant Fisher, second place winner Woody Kincaid and third place winner Nico Young pose after the men’s 10,000-meter final at the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Team Trials in Eugene, Oregon, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Charlie Nibergal)
EUGENE, Ore. – The top spot is long gone.
The second one was the same.
As the 10,000-meter final at the Olympic Trials approached the final lap on a hot Friday night at Hayward Field, Nico Young sneaked a peek at the stadium’s giant video screen.
Like Young, former high school phenom Drew Hunter was still there.
In the final 400 metres, Young nearly collapsed a few times but then pushed himself even harder.
Young, a two-time NCAA indoor champion at Northern Arizona, finally extended his lead to secure third place on the U.S. national team, fulfilling the destiny that was initially predicted for the Newbury Park High School superstar.
“I think the term Olympian kind of transcends the sport,” Young says, “so it’s a really cool thing to call myself.”
Nike’s Grant Fisher won in a commanding victory in 27 minutes 49.47 seconds, failing to quell speculation that he could become the first athlete since 2012 to win an Olympic 10,000 meters medal and just the second since 1964.
Woody Kincaid, the former University of Portland star and Fisher’s one-time training partner who now works in Flagstaff with NAU coach Mike Smith, comfortably took second in 27:50.74.
Next came Young, who clocked a time of 27 minutes 52.40 seconds in his pro debut, beating Hunter by 0.95 seconds.
Nike’s Connor Mantz, who won the Olympic Marathon Trials in February, picked up the pace after 7,200 meters and Sam Chelanga, a five-time NCAA champion from Liberty High School, took the lead with two laps to go, briefly widening his lead before giving way to Young.
“I felt like I had to go with every move,” Young said.
Young held the lead for 800 metres before Fisher made a furious charge with 1,200 metres to go.
“When Grant left I knew that was when the real racing began,” Young said.
Fischer then ran the final 800 meters in 1 minute 58.61 seconds, almost at the same time as the start.
Fisher’s win vindicated his decision to leave the Nike-sponsored Bowerman Track Club and move from Eugene to Park City to train under coach Mike Scannell at Grand Blanc High School in Michigan.
“That’s right,” Fisher said. “I knew deep down it was the right decision. It was a hard decision, it was a risky decision, but I knew in my heart that now was the right time.”
“I was ready to go. This is proof.”
As the first day of the Olympic Trials dawned, three big questions remained unanswered: Would Olympic gold medalists Matthew Centrowitz, Ryan Crowther and A-Sing Mu actually compete, and if they did, would they be good enough to compete in Paris?
The first answer came before breakfast, when Centrowitz, the 2016 Olympic 1,500-meter gold medalist and local hero, announced that a hamstring injury had forced him to withdraw from the heats, ending the former Oregon star’s hopes of competing in a fourth Olympic Games.
“Unfortunately, my fourth Olympic Trials this week will not have the fairytale ending I was hoping for,” the former Oregon star said on his social media accounts.
Crowther and Mu kept their Olympic dreams alive for at least one more day.
Of the two, Crowther, a two-time Olympic shot put champion and world record holder in the event, was the more convincing. Crowther, who missed competition this spring with a series of injuries, threw 70 feet, 4 1/4 inches, the third-best result in Friday’s preliminary round, to comfortably advance to Saturday night’s final.
“Once you get out there in front of a crowd, it doesn’t feel so bad,” Crowther said.
“It” could have been any one or all of a series of injuries. Crowther, who grew up at the foot of Mount Hood in Boring, Oregon, had not pitched since March 1, when he injured his right elbow while winning the world indoor championships in Glasgow.
“After that it was just one thing after another,” Crowther said.
He tore his pectoral muscle while bench pressing. His elbow started hurting again. Then he injured his back. Then he injured his elbow again.
“It was so frustrating,” he says. “I was feeling so insecure about myself. I was taking one step forward and two steps back. ‘Am I going to get through this?’
Adding to his anxieties was the good form of longtime rival Joe Kovacs, who finished with a world-leading 75-2 3/4 at the Los Angeles Grand Prix on May 25.
“I was sitting on the couch watching (TV),” Crowther said, “thinking, ‘Oh man, I need to get out.'”
Four days later, he tried pitching during a workout at the team’s training base in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
“I thought I was OK,” he said, “but three days later I couldn’t even straighten my arm.”
His goal this week is simple.
“Finish in the top three and you get three more weeks,” he said.
Mu, the 2021 Olympic and 2022 world champion, hadn’t raced since last September’s Prefontaine Classic, which she won in 1 minute, 54.97 seconds, her third-place finish at worlds and the best of a season in which she competed in just four meets because of hamstring issues.
Mew may have been the biggest question mark this season after being sidelined and dealing with a hamstring issue.
On Friday night, she finished third in the preliminaries and 15th overall, but still advanced to Saturday’s semifinals with a time of 2:01.73.
“It felt like my first race back,” said Mu, who trains in Los Angeles under Bobby Carthy and with 400m hurdles record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. “Obviously, my legs were totally awake.”
