Olympics Wrap-Up; gold and silver on the track

Posted 8/22/16

Olympic sprinter Taylor Ellis-Watson, shown here in her senior season at Springside. (Photo by Tom Utescher) by Tom Utescher Three women with area ties were in action for Team USA as the 2016 Olympic …

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Olympics Wrap-Up; gold and silver on the track

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Olympic sprinter Taylor Ellis-Watson, shown here in her senior season at Springside. (Photo by Tom Utescher) Olympic sprinter Taylor Ellis-Watson, shown here in her senior season at Springside. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

Three women with area ties were in action for Team USA as the 2016 Olympic Games wrapped up late last week with marquee events in track and field down in Rio de Janeiro.

Nia Ali, who grew up in Germantown, became part of an historic one-two-three sweep by claiming the silver medal in the 100 meter hurdles. Ajee Wilson, an 800 meter standout whose training base is in Northeast Philadelphia and who frequents the tracks at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy and Cheltenham High, got through the qualifying rounds and then narrowly missed out on a spot in the finals.

In the 4 x 400 relay, 2011 Springside grad Taylor Ellis-Watson was part of the gold medal effort for the U.S., running in the opening round and helping the American ensemble enter the finals as the top seed.

A trio of Mount St. Joseph Academy alums had ended their run in Rio by the beginning of last week.

Rowing for Nigeria, Chierika Ukogu, who graduated from the Mount in 2010 and from Stanford University in 2014, ultimately placed 20th overall in the women’s single sculls.

Field hockey siblings Katie (Mount ’08) and Julia Reinprecht (’09) had both played in the 2012 Games and then had returned home to help Princeton University win its first NCAA championship in the sport.

Their 2016 team finished the first week of competition in Rio with a 4-1 record and second-place standing within one of the two six-team pools (called “groups” here). The Americans seemed poised to make a run at a medal, but they made what they felt was a premature exit in the quarterfinal round of the hockey tourney on Monday, August 15.

In their five pool-play games in Group B, the U.S. sticksters had never let an opponent gain an early lead, and they had never trailed at all until Great Britain scored what proved to be a game-winning goal (2-1) with four-and-a-half minutes remaining on the last day of the group round-robin phase of the competition.

Moving into the quarterfinals phase on Monday, the Americans found themselves in unfamiliar territory when Germany put them in an 0-2 hole in the first period. A little later, it appeared that Katie Reinprecht had gotten the U.S. on the scoreboard, but a video replay (a “referral” in Olympic parlance) showed that the ball had made contact with the former Mount star’s body just before entering the goalcage, and the goose egg lingered on the board for the Americans.

With 3:59 remaining in the match, Team USA made it a one-goal game with a strike by Katelyn Falgowski (Landenberg, Pa./North Carolina). The U.S. now pressed for a tying goal.

American fans were disgruntled by what they felt was a costly non-call by the officials. During a shooting attempt inside the circle, contact by a German defender appeared to interfere with the stroke of Blue Bell’s Katie Bam (Wissahickon H.S./Maryland) and then knock her to the turf. No foul of any type was forthcoming.

The tally remained 2-1, and the Germans headed to the semifinal round while the U.S. Team headed home.

The American players had hoped to go farther, and had certainly appeared capable of doing so. Still, their final record of 4-2 was the best of any U.S. Olympic Team; the 1984 squad had finished 2-2-1, but in the tournament format of that time, that proved to be good enough for a bronze medal.

The Reinprechts and their colleagues at least had the consolation of knowing that the two teams that beat them were the real deal and would come away with Olympic medals. Great Britain’s Alex Danson, who’d scored the deciding goal in the match with the U.S., struck twice for the Brits as they rocked higher-ranked New Zealand in the semifinals, 3-0.

In the other semifinal, Germany pushed the Netherlands past regulation play and then seven players deep into a shootout before the Dutch finally prevailed. No-call karma came back to bite Germany when their fifth shooter was shoved by the Netherlands goalie and there was no whistle.

Germany went on to claim the bronze medal, and in the championship match Great Britain came from behind to tie 3-3 in regulation play and force the Netherlands into a shootout. This time, the Dutch keeper was called for a foul, giving one of the Brit shooters a second chance. Behind rock solid goalkeeping from Maddie Hinch, Great Britain won the shootout, 2-0, dethroning the two-time defending gold medalists.

On the track, the first of the local women in Rio to claim a medal was Ali in the 100 hurdles. She grew up in Germantown (where she still has family) and went to elementary school at both Henry H. Houston and Charles W. Henry before moving to Amy Northwest Middle School (interestingly, 2016 Springside grad Brooklynn Broadwater, a Tennessee signee and a former Penn Relays champion in the 400 hurdles, also went to Amy Northwest).

Ali, now 27, moved to New Jersey as a high school senior and graduated from Pleasantville High School, but she ran for several years in the strong program at West Catholic. Starting out at Tennessee, she saw her collegiate career take off when she transferred to USC, and in 2011 she was both the NCAA champion and the World University Games champ in the 100 hurdles. In the winter of 2013-14, she won the 60-meter titles at the U.S. Indoor Championships and World Indoor Championships.

Now a North Hollywood, Calif. resident running professionally for Nike, Ali won the second of six opening-round heats in Rio in order to advance. Dropping her time by one-tenth of a second, she also finished first in one of the three semifinals, and the other two races were won by her U.S. teammates Brianna Rollins and Kristi Castlin.

Ali then shaved off a little more time in the final race on Wednesday to secure the silver medal in 12.59 seconds. Rollins, a Floridian who starred for SEC powerhouse Clemson University, ran 12.48 to seize the gold medal one day before her 25th birthday.

Helping Team USA complete an historic one-two-three medal sweep was the 28-year-old Castlin, who took the bronze medal in 12.61. She's a Georgia native who spent her college career at Virginia Tech. It was the very first such sweep for the U.S. in the 100 hurdles, and only the seventh ever for the country in any track and field event.

In the 800 meters, Ajee Wilson started out in the second of the eight preliminary heats and placed second behind Caster Semenya of South Africa. Still only 22, Wilson had turned pro soon after graduating from high school in north central New Jersey.

In the Olympic semifinal round last Thursday, runners had to place first or second in one of the three races to move on, and after that the athletes with the next two fastest times would round out the eight-woman final. Wilson came in third in semifinal one with a time of one minute, 59.75, a bit off the pace of her effort in the heats (1:59.44).

Unfortunately for her, the relatively slow pace of this particular contest made it impossible for her to qualify on time. Kenya's Margaret Wambui won the section in 1:59.21, while in each of the other two semi's the top time was under 1:59. The other American semifinalist, Kate Grace, qualified on time in 1:58.79, as did Maryna Arzamasava of Belarus (1:58.87).

Both women ran in semifinal number three, which was won convincingly by Semenya in 1:58.15. The South African also mastered the field in the final, winning gold in 1:55.28 while an athlete from Burundi was runner-up in 1:56.49 and Wambui secured the bronze medal (1:56.89).

Former Springsider Ellis-Watson did not see action at all until Friday evening, two days before the end of the 2016 Games. A relay pool of six runners was culled from the U.S. Olympic trials in the 4 x 400.

Qualifying to run individually in the 400 were the top three finishers at trials, where the superb Allyson Felix was followed by Phyllis Francis and Natasha Hastings. Ellis-Watson placed fourth just ahead of Francena McCorory, who ran in the 2012 final in London to win a gold medal. Sixth in trials was recent University of Texas grad Courtney Okolo, who had won the NCAA outdoor 400 meter title just ahead of Ellis-Watson.

Once these six women became part of the official relay pool, the coaches were free to configure the quartets as they saw fit for the opening heat race and for the finals. There was no semifinal stage in between for this event.

In the first of the two heats on Friday evening, Okolo finished the opening leg with the lead, and it was increased by Ellis-Watson on the second lap. The local runner handed off to McCorory, and then Francis brought it home for the U.S. in a time of 3:21.42, a better figure than that produced by the winner of the other heat, Jamaica (3:22.38).

In the final, the U.S. held a slim lead at the end of three legs (Okolo/Hastings/Francis), but Felix opened up more space on the back side and then pulled away down the home straight. The Americans won their sixth straight Olympic gold medal in the event in a time of 3:19.06, with Jamaica the runner-up in 3:20.34.

As part of the relay pool, Ellis-Watson and McCorory received gold medals even though they did not actually run in the final race.

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