Simpson out, St. Pierre in on a stunning day at trials
EUGENE, ORE. » Maybe it was the heat that touched nearly 120 degrees down on the track. Maybe it was the jostling right after the starting gun that sent five or six runners scrambling to keep their feet.
Mostly, Jenny Simpson said, she was not ready to run the sort of time she needed to make it to her second Olympics.
Simpson, whose thirdplace finish in Rio five years ago made her the first American woman to win an Olympic medal at 1,500 meters, finished 10th on Monday in the first true stunner of U.S. track trials.
That was three spots ahead of Nikki Hiltz, the runner who came out as transgender earlier this year and was also given a good chance to go to Tokyo.
Hiltz and Simpson were both involved in a smash-up just after the starting gun on a sweltering day at Hayward Field. Neither recovered. Hiltz fell from fourth to last over the final lap. Simpson was in the middle of the pack and never had a closing kick.
“It’s hard to believe,” said Simpson, the 34-year-old who also has a gold and two silvers from world championships. “I really thought I was going to make the team and I just wasn’t ready. I needed to be in 4-flat shape, and that was proven today by the incredible run of the people who made the team.”
The winner, Elle Purrier St. Pierre, set a new trials record of 3 minutes, 58.03 seconds. The old record was
set 33 years ago by Mary Slaney.
Cory McGee was second and Heather MacLean finished third to earn spots to Tokyo.
“I never thought I’d be
here today, and here I am,” said MacLean, who only made the final after winning a protest after being knocked around by incidental contact in the preliminaries.