Fisher runs way to 2nd Tokyo spot
Ex-Stanford standout was second in 5,000
Former Stanford All-American Grant Fisher completed an impressive double Sunday on the final day of the U.S. Olympic Trials for track and field.
Fisher, a 2017 NCAA champion and 12-time All-American, finished second in the 5,000 meters in Eugene, Ore., to make the U.S. team.
He had finished second in the 10,000 meters a week earlier to qualify for his first Olympic team.
Fisher, 24, finished second Sunday morning behind Olympic silver medalist Paul Chelimo, who won the race in 13 minutes 26.82 seconds. Fisher crossed the line in 13:27.01.
Fisher told reporters Sunday
that he plans to enter both distance events in Tokyo next month.
“I’m really happy with how I raced over the last week,” he said.
The race originally was scheduled for Sunday evening but moved to 10 a.m. because of the extreme heat conditions in the Pacific Northwest. The race started in 88-degree temperatures.
The day’s signature events were postponed until later Sunday night, including the men’s 200 sprint, the men’s long jump, the women’s 800 and men’s 1,500.
Fisher, a Canadian-American from Grand Blanc, Michigan, also was runner-up in the 10,000 meters. He achieved that feat in only his second competitive try at the distance.
Fisher finished in 27:54.29 just behind Bowerman Track Club teammate Woody Kincaid, who was third Sunday in the 5K.
Chelimo outsprinted the competition to win three months after his younger brother died unexpectedly in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He said he traveled to Kenya and lost training time for the trials.
“It’s a lot of things going on,” Chelimo told reporters. “But at the end of the day, I believe in one thing: Go hard or suffer for the rest of your life.”
Fisher is one of four athletes with Bay Area ties to qualify for the Summer Olympics during the two-week track trials.
Stanford star Valarie Allman won the women’s discus by 24 feet, 3 inches and heads to Tokyo as one of the gold-medal favorites. She missed making the team in 2016 by three feet.
“I realized in that moment that I wanted to try again to be an Olympian and represent the United States,” she told reporters after winning her third consecutive American title.
Stanford’s Elise Cranny won the women’s 5,000 with a final lap of 63.73 seconds to also make the team, as did San Jose State alumna Robyn Stevens in the 20K race walk.
Stanford alums Katerina Stefanidi (Greece) and Malindi Elmore (Canada) and Cal’s Camryn Rogers (Canada) have qualified.