SJSU’s Stevens beats heat, lands Olympic team berth
Race walker from Vacaville makes first Olympic team at age of 38
Organizers at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials moved up several race times to beat the sweltering heat in Eugene, Oregon, but Robyn Stevens delivered a cool performance first thing Saturday morning that has the San Jose State grad headed to the Tokyo Games.
Stevens, a race walker and former San Jose State cross-country team member, made her first Olympic team at age 38, finishing the 20-kilometer course in 1:35.13. She finished more than four minutes ahead of the second-place finisher.
Stevens is the first San Jose State woman to make a U.S. Olympic track team since discus thrower Margaret Jenkins in 1932.
Vacaville’s Stevens, who competed on Spartans’ cross-country team in 2003 only, retired from the sport in 2004 but returned five years ago. She finished 11th in the women’s 20-kilometer race at the 2016 U.S. trials.
Stevens is the second Spartan to qualify for an Olympic Games in race walking. Tom Dooley represented the U.S. men’s team in the 20-kilometer walk at the 1968 and 1972 Olympics, finishing 17th
and 15th respectively.
Stevens’ win kicked off a busy — and sweltering — day in TrackTown USA.
With highs expected to reach 102 degrees, meet organizers took pity on the distance runners and moved their race to the morning instead of its early evening time slot. Stevens’ race was moved up by two hours, to a 7 a.m. start.
Still, it was 85 degrees when the starting gun went off for the 10,000 meters.
Emily Sisson didn’t waste any time, borrowing her husband’s sunglasses and then getting out to the front early and setting a meet record, finishing in 31:03.82 to earn a trip to the Tokyo Games.
“I kept telling myself, ‘If you’re feeling the heat, so is everyone else too,’” the 29-year-old Sisson said. “I’m used to leading from the front so it doesn’t really spook me.”
Soon after, it was Sisson applying the heat to the other 40 women in the race. It was a tactical decision to set a brisk pace from the outset.
“It was hot. We knew it was going to be hot,” she said after beating Deena Kastor’s 2004 trials record by nearly 6 seconds. “It was hard. It didn’t feel easy.”
Karissa Schweizer finished second in 31:16.52. She’s also qualified in the 5,000. Third place went to Alicia Monson (31:18.55), who retreated into the shade after the race and covered her legs in wet towels to cool down.
“I just kind of expected it to be pretty brutal out there,” Schweizer said. “The problem with the heat is that it just makes you feel exhausted . ... I just worked through every lap.”
Race officials took the rare step of setting up a water table on the track. Sisson didn’t use it. She just kept her focus on lapping other runners to help power her toward the finish line.
“I knew everyone else was feeling the heat, too, so I didn’t really let it affect me mentally,” Sisson explained. “If the conditions were better, I probably would’ve tried to finish even harder.”
The runners stayed cool before the race any way they could. They wore ice vests, poured water over their necks and remained in the shade as long as possible.
Still, four of the runners didn’t finish.
• DeAnna Price bested her own American record in the hammer throw and secured a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.
Price set the record at 263 feet, 6 inches. She became the first American woman with a throw over 80 meters (80.31) and just the seventh overall to throw that far.
She beat her own American record twice Saturday at Oregon’s Hayward Field.
Also securing a spot was runner-up Brook Anderson, with a throw of 255 feet, and third-place finisher Gwendolyn Berry, with a throw of 241-2. It is Berry’s second Olympics.
• Rai Benjamin won the 400-meter hurdles, earning a spot on the team while setting a meet record with a finish in 46.83 seconds. It was also a personal best and gave him the world-leading time this season. Also making the team was Kenny Selmon, who finished second in 48.08.
• Maggie Malone set a meet record with a throw of 208 feet, 4 inches to earn a spot for her second Olympics. She was on the 2016 team and finished 25th in the event.
Kara Winger made her fourth Olympic team with a throw of 201-8.
• Elise Cranny of Stanford, who won the 5,000 meters, missed qualifying in the 10,000 meters after finishing fourth. Another Stanford graduate, Sara Hall of Santa Rosa finished sixth. Hall failed to make the Olympic team in the marathon in early 2020 but has since emerged as America’s best in the race.