The cooler head of Jordan Hasay prevailed, note by Kevin Mangan

Jordan Hasay, photo by PhotoRun.net

The cooler head of Jordan Hasay prevailed, note by Kevin Mangan

The USATF Indoor Championships was quite the weekend. There were lots of great racing and competition.

Unfortunately that was all overshadowed by the Gabe Grunewald disqualification incident. While social media, the American track world and people around her were in an uproar, the cooler head of Jordan Hasay prevailed and Grunewald will get to fully enjoy her first national championship, as well as a berth in the World Indoor Championships.

Ms. Hasay must be commended for doing what she thought was right, even though it came at a great cost to her. Hasay voluntarily retracting her protest and giving up her spot on Team USA is a perfect example of doing what is right as opposed to what is easy: “As with all of the competitors who lined up on Saturday, I desperately wanted to make the team to represent the United States at the upcoming World Indoor Track and Field Championships. Since Saturday evening my emotions have ranged from despair to determination to go to Poland and represent my country as best I can. After much thought and consideration, however, I have decided to withdraw my protest as I do not want to make a national team under these circumstances. I wish all members of the USA team going to Poland my best and look forward to continuing to train hard and competing to represent the USA in future World Championship and Olympic Games.” said Hasay.

As Hasay astutely demonstrated winning, or in this case making national teams, is not the most important thing in the world. Jordan showed an extremely high level of maturity during a trying time. On behalf of track fans everywhere, thank you for showing us how to be a true sportswoman or sportsman.

(Editor’s note: Kevin Mangan is our intern for American Track & Field and RunBlogRun.com. Kevin recently competed in the 12k at the USA Cross Country champs and wrote about that. You can see his writings, most days, on www.american-trackandfield.com and on FB and twitter. Kevin said what needed to be said: Jordan Hasay showed wisdom beyond her years).

Larry Eder

Larry Eder has had a 50-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself."

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