Rio medalists’ season reaches the last mile
While some Rio Olympians threw out the first pitch at a ball game, appeared on late-night talk shows and posed on the red carpet, one will mark her return from the Summer Games with a race down Fifth Avenue in New York.
Jenny Simpson became the first U.S. woman to win an Olympic medal in the 1,500 meters, claiming bronze Aug. 16. Eleven days later she ran in a meet in Paris, posting her fastest time this year, 3 minutes, 58.19 seconds.
Instead of going home to Boulder, Colo., Simpson will race in the New Balance 5th Avenue Mile on Saturday in a strong field that includes Emma Coburn, her training partner in Boulder who won an Olympic bronze medal in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase. Coburn broke her U.S. record in the race and became the first American to win an Olympic medal in the event.
Simpson said it wouldn’t be hard for her to race after the excitement of Rio because she’s stuck to her routine. “The life for us on the road is very much about rhythm,” she said on a conference call with reporters. “There’s cer- tainly an enormous amount of joy and relief after accomplishing … something of (your) dreams. … It’s a really magical thing to have accomplished that, and there’s certainly a lot of enervation that comes from having accomplished that in Rio.”
Soon after winning her Olympic medal, Simpson flew to Paris and “got right back into the rhythm of racing. I think that rhythm for me is really familiar and is really comfortable.”
Olympic gold medalist Matthew Centrowitz will headline the men’s field of the 5th Avenue Mile. Centrowitz, who became the first American man to win Olympic gold in the 1,500 since 1908, said he landed in the USA last weekend and attended a friend’s wedding.
“I brought the medal, took pictures with everyone and tried not to steal their day,” he said while speaking from his father’s office at American University. His dad, Matt Centrowitz, is the longtime track and cross country coach at AU. On Monday the door to his office was decorated in gold wrapping paper, Matthew said.
“It’s just been overwhelming, to say the least, with everyone coming up to me, taking pictures and posing with the medal,” Matthew Centrowitz said. “It’s just been awesome to see the support that I’ve gotten from friends and family who have been there all the way and also people I haven’t heard (from) in years. It’s kind of hard to let it all sink in that I’m an Olympic champion, and it’s kind of hard to believe. But definitely the people around me are starting to make me realize how big it is, how great they’ve been, and (they’re) just excited for me.”
Centrowitz says he’ll skip the Diamond League meet in Brussels, and Simpson says she’ll shut down her season after the 5th Avenue. She’s eager to return to her home in Boulder.
“With Emma and I both having both such successful races, and both being in Boulder and training there, it’s like double the craziness,” she said. “I think people in Boulder don’t know what to do with themselves they were so excited. It will be really fun to come home to that.”