Oregonians compete in Olympic track and field events

Last week Ryan Crouser, who grew up in Boring, became the first person to win three straight gold medals in men’s shot put at the Olympic Games. The University of Oregon’s Jaida Ross will compete in women’s shot put on Aug. 9. Earlier this week, former Duck Cole Hocker won the 1,500 meter race. Sarah Lorge Butler, contributing writer at Runner’s World, joins us for an update on all the athletes with Oregon ties competing in track and field events in Paris.

Note: The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. It has been a spellbinding Olympics for track and field lovers, and a golden one for Oregon athletes with come from behind victories and record breaking performances. The Eugene writer Sarah Lorge Butler has been on the scene for a lot of this action. She’s covering the Olympics for Runner’s World. She’s written for Runner’s World for about 20 years now and she joins us to talk about some of the highlights from the last two weeks. Sarah, welcome back to the show.

Sarah Lorge Butler: Thanks for having me back, Dave.

Miller: I want to start with the men’s 1,500 [meter race], which was just a breathtaking race. The Americans, including a former Duck, ended up being the story of the day. But that’s not the way so many running followers, running writers had sort of scripted it before the race. So I was hoping you could start by just telling us a little bit about the background on the two favorites.

Lorge Butler: Yes. So there are these two European guys. There’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway. He was the 2021 Olympic gold medalist in the 1,500 meters. And then there’s Josh Kerr of Great Britain. He was the 2023 world champion. The two of them have just been trash talking each other. I mean, usually Americans are the trash talkers and Europeans don’t really engage that way, but it was the opposite this time. The Americans were quiet and well behaved, and the Europeans were the ones who were running their mouths – going back for like a year. So that led everybody to believe that Ingebrigtsen and Kerr were the two favorites. I mean, I guess they were on paper, but paying attention closely, you would have known that the Americans were really right there and anything could happen on the night.

Miller: So who are these three Americans? Cole Hocker, perhaps the most well-known name for Oregonians, since he is a former Duck. Also Yared Nuguse and Hobbs Kessler.

Lorge Butler: They’re young guys and they all have devastating fast kicks. Hocker is 23. He spent two years at the University of Oregon. When his Oregon coach, Ben Thomas got his job back at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, Hocker moved from Eugene back to Blacksburg to stay with the same coach who he had had so much success with when he was in Oregon.

Yared Nuguse is a fun story. He grew up in Kentucky, he never really ran at all. But then in gym class they had to run a mile and he ran a mile in 5:30. He says he did it just so that he could be the first one in line at McDonald’s for lunch.

Miller: So for folks who have never run before, it’s really fast. And it’s hard to imagine you’ve never done it before and you just run it faster than anybody else in your … was he in junior high school or something?

Lorge Butler: No, in high school. I think he was a freshman in high school. Yeah. And so of course, the track coach is immediately all over him, and coming to his class, and getting him out of class and like, “you should really join track.” It took a while for him to be convinced. But once he was convinced, there’s no looking back.

Then the third guy is Hobbs Kessler and he’s only 21 years old. He’s just incredibly fast, young and talented. He’s also in the 800 meters and he’s through to the semifinal in that. So, he’s just an amazing talent.

So the Americans were great. They were great in Eugene in late June and they finished in that order: Hocker, Nuguse and Kessler. And they all made the final. It had been since 1968 since the Americans had put three men in the 1,500 meter final. And when you have three men in the final of 12, you have better medal chances. But I don’t think anybody would have predicted what happened.

Miller: What was Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s strategy? It seems like it’s a key piece of how the race turned out – his plan for how to win.

Lorge Butler: Yeah, I don’t think he has the kick, quite, of the others in the race. Like he’s really good at running a fast even pace. He is a faster PR than all these guys, but those have all come in races where they have pacers running evenly and he just has to follow them. Then they have pace lights around the track. So he’s like, less is sort of good in these championship style racers where it’s just you racing against other people. So his strategy I think was just take it out hard, try to run the kick out of these guys and see how it goes, because if it comes down to the final quarter and everybody is there together, then his chances aren’t quite as good for him there.

But the problem is he went out too hard. His first lap, I think, was 54.8 seconds, which was ahead of world record pace. It’s just a fine line between fast and too fast, and having enough energy left at the end. So he said afterwards that he kind of blew over that first lap, that he was two seconds too fast.

Miller: So that was this brash reigning Olympic champion’s plan. Let’s have a listen to the end of the race from NBC’s coverage.

[Recording]: “Hocker can still get the medal! Hocker needs to move around to go here if he’s going to put himself in. Josh Kerr is winning, he needs to pounce now if he’s going to take the title from Ingebrigtsen. Look at Cole Hocker. He’s possibly going to get the medal and so too is Nuguse. Perhaps Kessler wants in on the conversation. Ingebrigtsen, Cole Hocker on the inside. And Nuguse coming on the inside. Here comes Josh Kerr on the outside. All the talking is over – the world champion here in Paris. Cole Hocker wins gold!”

Miller: I realized, I think I’ve seen this race three times now. And so I know it’s happening, but in retrospect, it’s a little bit hard to understand based on yelling audio coverage on the radio. So can you just describe what happened in the final 200 meters? And I also realize you’ve been using the word “the kick.” So what does a kick mean in the context of a middle distance race?

Lorge Butler: Well, “the kick” is … it’s an interesting question. It’s what gets you to the finish line. It’s the last bit. Some people call the kick, there’s no set distance for what the kick is. I mean, some people will have a long kick that starts from 400 meters to the finish line. Others have a great kick from 100 meters in. It’s all part of the strategy, but it’s basically that little bit of extra that you have, that last burst of speed, your fastest speed as you hit the finish line.

So to describe it, I haven’t seen the video enough times, but from the last 200, Hocker is doing what he did in Eugene. He’s coming up hard on the outside. Nuguse said at this point, oh, Cole feels good again. I feel good. This is going to be something special. And then, in the last, around the curve they come, Ingebrigtsen is still leading. Kerr is tucked in behind him. Hocker is ahead of Nuguse at this point. Top of the stretch, Ingebrigtsen is leading and Hocker tries to get in on the inside, and Ingebrigtsen kind of drifts back to the inside to cut off Hocker. Then Kerr comes up on Ingebrigtsen outside. I don’t know, it’s like 50 meters to go, maybe. Hocker finally gets by Ingebrigtsen on the inside. And then, Kerr is going by Ingebrigtsen on the outside, but then Hocker is just speedier than Kerr. So it’s Hocker first, then Kerr.

Then, meanwhile, Nuguse has launched his kick from 100 out and he’s passing everybody. He passes Ingebrigtsen. So Ingebrigtsen is now in fourth. Nuguse comes up on Kerr and he finishes third, actually by one-hundredth of a second. I swear, if the race was another foot long, Nuguse would have had the silver medal, but he was pretty good with bronze.

Miller: He was beaming. And there’s so many, in so many different events. It’s so moving to watch the athletes. Then when they go into the crowd, and hug their crying parents and family – there was a great scene there.

All right, let’s go from this surprise American gold to, I don’t know, what feels bad to say, but I think a disappointing American silver. Can you give us a sense for the expectations for Sha’Carri Richardson in the women’s 100 [meter race]?

Lorge Butler: Yeah, I mean, she was seen as the favorite because I think she had run the fastest time in the world so far this year. But again, this is one of those things like the men’s 1,500. If you were paying attention, Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia … she won the gold medal and it was Saint Lucia’s first, I think, ever track medal. She had been running great all year and she looked great in the semifinals.

Sha’Carri Richardson has been so fast and so dominant in the U.S. that I think everyone expected a gold medal out of her. I think she expected it out of herself, having won the world championships last year. It was rainy and she was in the middle. Sha’Carri, I think, tends to do better in the outside lanes, but there’s a lane draw that I don’t entirely understand how they just determine all that. She was in the middle and Alfred just got off to a great start. No one was catching her.

I don’t know, I don’t think it’s a disappointment for Sha’Carri to get a silver. But she’s sort of a lightning rod, such a polarizing figure. She’s been the subject of this Netflix series called “Sprint.” I mean, just the attention and the pressure on her was so much that I think she and her team thought a silver was a disappointment, and she skipped the media afterwards. She skipped the press conference and I don’t know, we don’t really know how she feels about it because she wouldn’t talk to anybody else afterwards.

Miller: That women’s 100, it wasn’t especially close for a sprint. I mean, Saint Lucia’s Julien Alfred won by 15-hundreths of a second, which is actually a sizable distance. It’s more than body lengths apart.

The men’s 100 was so close that it wasn’t clear who won for a little while. In fact, on TV, the folks got it wrong briefly. It turned out that the American, Noah Lyles, who was also in that Netflix series and sort of everywhere in media, gained his way forward into a gold medal by a ridiculous five-thousandths of a second. What does Noah Lyles mean for this sport?

Lorge Butler: Noah is just the ultimate hype man. I mean, first of all, there’s just no getting around his talent. He is so, so good and the 100 isn’t even his best event. The 200 is his better event. But I mean, now he has the title “the fastest man in the world.” So there’s no getting around that. But that guy will stop, he’ll talk, he’ll do interviews. He’s just trying to build track and field up. And he’s just got this like, I don’t know, contagiously happy personality, and he’s just so much fun.

It’s great to see him come out. When they introduce him, he goes running halfway, sprinting halfway down the track, like hyping up the crowd. And he’ll do these jumps before he settles into the blocks where you swear he could dunk a basketball when he’s doing it. He’s just an amazing athlete, but he’s got the personality to go with it. And I don’t know, it’s fun to see someone who has so much joy, and also just likes to share the journey with the fans, and sort of do all the interviews, and make all the jokes. It’s just he’s a great ambassador for track and field.

Miller: What is this 80,000-person stadium, the Stade de France, like for these marquee races?

Lorge Butler: It’s not even necessarily the marquee races that are the loudest, although those are really loud. But every time a French athlete steps onto the track, or into the throwing circle, or up to the high jump area, I mean, the place just goes bananas. It is rocking, it is so loud. I have worried at times and wondered if I should have ear plugs on to save my hearing. I just was not prepared for how loud it is and yeah, the athletes come around the home stretch – and for the men’s 1,500, it was just mayhem. It was so loud. It was just so fun. It’s hard to describe.

They have this bell at the finish line. Have you seen the bell?

Miller: Yeah, can you describe it? I hadn’t seen this before. It’s become a little charming part of the post race extravaganza. So, what happens?

Lorge Butler: Yeah, it’s a holdover apparently from rugby. I don’t know about this, but rugby was played in the Stade de France before track took over. So the first week of the Olympics … and I think the bell is a big tradition in rugby where they ring the bell. I’m not sure if I have this right, but anyway, somebody had the bright idea to leave the bell there for the track. And so the gold medalists like to come home and pull the rope to ring the bell after they win their gold. So it’s like there’s just all this joy and happiness.

Then, on top of that, it’s this giant bronze church bell. And in fact, it is being donated or it’s being given to the Cathedral of Notre Dame after the Olympics, sort of a gift from the Olympics to the city of Paris. And the idea, I think, is that the spirit of the Olympics will continue to ring through the city of Paris long after the games have ended. But I mean, there’s just something about seeing Noah Lyles ringing a darn church bell that you’re like, this is really, it’s just so fun.

Miller: Let’s turn to the men’s 10,000 [meter race] where another American got a bronze. Can you tell us about Grant Fisher who is part of Oregon’s Bowerman Track Club?

Lorge Butler: Actually, he has left Oregon’s Bowerman Track Club.

Miller: Oh, I missed that.

Lorge Butler: Yeah, he spent a lot of time in Oregon, first in Portland and then in Eugene. But then in the last year, he left the Bowerman group and went back to his high school coach, actually. And it’s kind of interesting, I think he got injured last year and missed the world championships. He just was cross training and watching the world championships from his couch and just stewing. I think he thought he just really wanted a medal and he had to do what was best for him to get a medal. And for him, it meant leaving the group and just personalizing his training exactly to one person – to himself.

So he went back to his high school coach, moved to Park City, Utah, where he can live at altitude year-round. And his coach doesn’t live in Park City, but he flies in for every hard workout. And I don’t know, I think the big size of the Bowerman Track Club, he needed to do the last 90, the last 0.01% to get himself to the medal position. And by going out on his own, I think he was able to do that. It was a huge risk. But it worked out for him.

So, yeah, another one comes down to the final lap. He briefly has the lead with 100 meters to go, excuse me. And then winds up with the bronze. But he was beaming afterwards. He’s a really nice guy and it was a great moment to see because he made no secret of how badly he wanted a medal. I mean, he was just so open about it. He was just incredibly happy.

Miller: Let’s have a listen to NBC’s coverage of the end of this race.

[Recording]: “And it’s an Olympic record for Joshua Cheptegei. And Grant Fisher has won bronze for team USA here in Paris. Grant Fisher becomes just the second American in 56 years to win a medal at the Olympic Games in the men’s 10,000. How about that? Lee, this is a huge moment for American distance running. As you talked about earlier, Grant said, we believe we couldn’t do this. And he does. A good weekend.”

Miller: Sarah, I was really moved by that. I mean, you can hear the emotion in Kara Goucher’s voice there. And to me, it was such a clear example of what different medals mean for different athletes, what expectations are and where joy comes from. I mean, you could see it with Yared Nuguse, who we talked about earlier, winning a bronze in the 1,500 and was so happy. And Sha’Carri Richardson who skipped out on talking to the press after winning a silver medal – an extraordinary thing – but not the ultimate goal, not, not the gold.

How do you think about what performances mean to athletes and to fans at something like the Olympics?

Lorge Butler: Yeah, I think it’s a good question. I’d have to think about that. I think it’s all just in the individual and what they expect out of themselves. So for the Americans in the distances, it’s often been a hard road. The sprints – America has this amazing sprint tradition. Golds are kind of expected. In the distances, yeah, we haven’t had quite as many, especially on the men’s side. It’s just been like few and far between. Back in 2016, there were a bunch of distance medals, but it’s been a few lean years here, just like one at a time pretty much ever since then at these global championships. So for those guys, Nuguse and Hocker and Grant Fisher just being on the podium is all that matters – top three. There was another distance medalist last night, Kenneth Rooks, in the steeplechase. He got a surprise silver and he was just amazed.

Then, on the sprint side, it’s all part and parcel of what people’s public images are built up to be and what’s expected. And in Sha’Carri’s case, like we talked about the Netflix series and the magazine covers that she was on, the fashion and the whole thing. It’s just sort of like gold or bust for somebody like that. I think silver is pretty darn good and you just have to be so perfect on the day. I hope, at some point, Sha’Carri Richardson – I don’t know her at all – [is] proud of herself. But it’s not what she wanted.

Noah Lyles won a bronze medal in his signature event – the 200 meters back in Tokyo in 2021. He didn’t like that bronze. He kept it out in his home as a reminder that he always had more work to do. He said every time he saw that it was just a reminder that there was more to do still. So it really just depends on the athlete.

Miller: So we’ve talked a lot about running for, for obvious reasons. But Oregon also has some of the best throwers in the world, including Ryan Crouser, who went to Sam Barlow High school in Gresham [and] won his record third gold medal. What more is there to say about his dominance and his consistency?

Lorge Butler: He’s just an incredible athlete. I mean, it was the third throw. They get six throws in the shot put. It was his third throw and he launched it. 22.9 meters is the winning throw. So basically 75 feet he launched that thing and I mean, it’s just amazing. That guy has had some injuries. He’s had some elbow issues, some nerve damage, I think in his elbow and a back problem. And for him to be able to do this now for eight years in a row, it’s just amazing. He’s just outstanding, and he was just really happy afterwards. It was great to see.

Miller: And then in the women’s shot put there’s Jaida Ross – from Medford originally and then the University of Oregon – in her first Olympics. I understand you talked to her today. The final is tomorrow. What did you hear from her?

Lorge Butler: Yes. Today was qualifying and they bring everybody in. The top 12 get to go on to the final. So she qualified. She didn’t throw anywhere close to her best today, but it doesn’t matter. She’s got a blank slate tomorrow and she’s got her nerves out of the way. But afterwards, she said “the nerves kind of got to me.” So she’s learning from that. It was like 10 in the morning when she takes to the track and even at 10 in the morning, it was really raucous. She said it’s very electric. So it was cool to be in this environment. But, yeah, the nerves kind of got to her. I think she’ll be good to go tomorrow.

Somebody asked her, “What will success look like for you here?” And she said her goal is to go in what she’s ranked or better. So her personal best throw is over 20 meters and this is, I think, currently ranked fifth among the fields. She wants to be top five or better. So good for her for just putting her goals out there on the line and going for it. I did tell her I was talking to Oregon radio later and she just said, “Hey, Oregon, I love you guys. Miss you and appreciate all the support you’ve given me this whole season. You know I’m proud to represent Oregon.” So that was really nice.

Miller: Sarah, it’s a pleasure talking to you. Have fun, get some sleep when you’re done with this.

Lorge Butler: Thank you so much, Dave. It’s been a blast. Don’t worry about me.

Miller: Sarah Lorge Butler lives in Eugene. She’s been a contributing writer to Runner’s World for about 20 years now. She joined us from Paris where she’s covering the Olympic Games. We talked earlier this morning. After we talked, American Noah Lyles, that confident and flamboyant sprinter, won bronze in the men’s 200 meter. American Kenny Bednarek captured the silver.

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