Coburn crushes steeplechase record

The former CU distance runner sets the new American time in the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon.

As recently as New Year’s, steeplechaser Emma Coburn wasn’t sure she would be healthy enough to race in the Rio Olympics.

She certainly wasn’t running. An Achilles injury she had sustained a year before was persistently bothering her — and despite time off and rest, there was no sign it was healing. In the fall, she could barely string together a few days of training before she was forced to stop running and cross-train.

On Saturday at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Ore., a mere five months after some of the darkest moments in her professional career, the worry and apprehension dissolved.

The former University of Colorado distance standout crushed the American 3,000-meter steeplechase record, running 9 minutes, 10.76.

“There were many moments that I didn’t believe in myself, and I didn’t believe I would be in one piece in 2016,” Coburn told The Denver Post. “It was definitely one of the hardest things I’ve been through. To get through it on the other side, feeling stronger than I ever have before, is such a blessing. It makes me appreciate this so much more because I couldn’t have predicted this would have happened a couple of months ago.”

All she had hoped to do Saturday was go under 9:20.

Coburn first went under Simpson’s mark in 2014 during a Diamond League meet in Glasgow, Scotland. But USA Track and Field, the American governing body for the sport, ruled in 2015 that her mark of 9:11.42 wouldn’t be ratified as a record because Coburn didn’t take a drug test after her race — a requirement for a record to be deemed official. She had finished second in the race, hadn’t known the rule and wasn’t drug-tested.

She gradually moved up to finish third behind Bahrain’s Ruth Jebet (8:59.97) and Kenya’s Hyvin Kiyeng (9:00.01).