Schools

Swampscott Cross Country Coach Will Be Watching Gold Medal Race

Marblehead marathoner Shalane Flanagan is now on an international stage but she ran some of the same courses that today's Swampscott High runners run.

 

Editor's Note: This story appeared before the marathon was run early Sunday. Shalane finished 10th in the marathon.

Marblehead’s Shalane Flanagan competes in the women’s marathon on Sunday, Aug. 5. The race will be shown live on NBC, Channel 7, from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.

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Her accomplishments included three-time All-State cross country performances, a first-place All-State finish in the mile, and a two-mile win whose record still stands; her 4:46 mile won the Indoor National Scholastic Championships.

She attended the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she won national cross country titles in 2002 and 2003 — becoming the first individual champion in the sport in Tar Heel history — and numerous track accolades.

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On August 16, 2008, Flanagan finished 3rd in the 2008 Olympic Womens 10000m Finals in Beijing, capturing the Bronze medal. She also set a new American record in 30:22.22, shattering her own American record set earlier in the year. She is only the second American woman to receive an Olympic medal in the 10,000 m.

To get a local perspective on this world class runner from neighboring Marblehead competing in the 2012 Olympics we turned to Swampscott High cross country coach Jeffrey Bartlett.

Here is our Q&A 

Will you be watching? Will cross country team members be watching? 

I've been paying attention to all of the Olympic sports, and now that the track & field events are picking up, I've been paying even greater attention. Between TV coverage, Twitter updates, and online message boards, it's easy to stay tuned at all hours of the day. It's consumed most of my nights after work, watching whatever Olympic sports are on. 
I've also been tweeting schedule updates to all of the high school runners to keep them informed of what's going on in the track world during the Games. I'll be e-mailing some reminders as well, especially as some of the track events that the kids themselves run are contested. There's a lot they can learn while watching the best in the world compete.


What does it mean for the kids to have someone who competed in some of the same events that they did now competing on an international stage? 

One cool thing about having Shalane run in the Olympics is that she's run on a lot of the same high school courses that our kids currently run on. She's raced the courses in Danvers and Marblehead, and the conference course at Bradley Palmer State Park. The kids can also make the connection that she's a human being just like they are: she still has to work hard and prepare herself to perform her best on race day. Nothing comes easily, it's attained through consistent, hard, smart training. I remember watching Shalane make her ascent through the distance running ranks during her college days and when she first made the Olympics in 2008, and it just helps emphasize to the kids that success doesn't happen overnight. You have to be willing to work at distance running for months and years at a time. She's a great ambassador for the sport of distance running.
Every current Olympian can tell you which athletes they remember watching compete when they were kids. So now local runners in Massachusetts have a great opportunity to watch Shalane compete, and maybe in ten years or so, they'll be at that level and high school kids will be watching them with awe, continuing the cycle. Think about it: somewhere in the United States right now, a high school kid is lacing up their shoes to go run, and that kid will one day be in the Olympics. I think that's pretty cool.

 

 

 

 


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