by RBR AdminElle Purrier St. Pierre has shown the world how it is done. Her 1,500m win, was after being jostled, and she took the lead. Her strength can not be underestimated. In my belief, Mark Coogan, her coach, and an Olympian is preparing her to be in a position to medal.
Cory McGee and Elle Purrier St. Pierre achieve their dreams, one lap to go! Women’s 1,500m, photo by Kevin Morris /Kevmofoto
Cory McGee ran an excellent race. She has the wheels to make the final and I see a sub 4:00 in her future.
Heather MacLean is a fascinating conundrum. She got it due to a protests, and she then makes the team and gets an Olympic qualifier!
Dreams do come true! Heather MacLean, Cory McGee, Elle Purrier St. Pierre, Women’s 1,500m, photo by Kevin Morris /Kevmofoto
And it is sure exciting to see someone not wearing Dragonflys making the middle distance teams. Perhaps, athletes’ abilities do matter?
Purrier St. Pierre goes Wire-to-Wire in Women’s 1500m after Hectic Start
By Pierre Weil
SOJC Track Bureau for RunBlogRun
EUGENE, Ore. — Elle Purrier St. Pierre dominated from start to finish in the women’s 1,500 meters at the Olympic Trials despite nearly crashing onto the infield in the first 50 meters. St. Pierre started the race in lane 1, and as the 13 athletes in the final merged in the first part of the race, the pushing and shoving nearly toppled multiple runners.
“Right after that happened, I realized I didn’t want to get pushed around,” said St. Pierre. “So I just pushed the pace throughout the whole thing and knew people would go with me.”
Undeterred by the early chaos, St. Pierre ran her way into the record books with a personal best time of 3:58.03, an Olympic Trials record.
St. Pierre, a first-time Olympian, will be joined by two other first-time Olympians in Cory McGee and Heather MacLean, who ran personal best times as well with times of 4:00.67 and 4:02.09, respectively.
McGee came into the finals with a plan to forget all the other runners and just stick with St. Pierre for as long as she could. Her plan worked to perfection. She was the only athlete able to stick with St. Pierre until the final 100 meters when St. Pierre pulled away.
Elle Purrier St. Pierre takes the 1,500m, June 21, 2021, photo by Kevmofoto / Kevin Morris
“I felt Elle get tripped up, and I could tell she wasn’t having it and started going for it,” said McGee. “So my strategy was just to stick with Elle.”
As for MacLean, she came into the meet with a personal best that was barely half a second slower than the Olympic Qualifying Standard time, and only qualified for the final after successfully protesting incidental contact that happened in the semifinals.
MacLean took full advantage of the successful protest and managed to hit that Olympic standard in the final.
“I didn’t know if I had it in me. I didn’t know what today held,” MacLean said. “I knew that I was gonna go out there today and give it everything I had regardless, so I was hoping that was worthy of a spot in the top three.”
St. Pierre, McGee, and MacLean all run for New Balance, and St. Pierre and MacLean are long-time friends and training partners.
“Heather is one of my very best friends,” said St. Pierre. “She was in my wedding. I’ve always loved her ever since college, so I’m so happy we’re able to run together at New Balance.”
The cloud hanging over this race all weekend was of course the fact that Shelby Houlihan, the defending national champion and U.S. record holder, received a four-year ban after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug back in December.
The Americans will have a tough time against international competition, as the world-leading time is five seconds faster than St. Pierre’s new personal best. In spite of this, St. Pierre still says there’s only one goal for the Olympics, “Medal.”
