Everyone's got a story, especially Olympians
Behind every athlete is a tale of how they got to the big stage; here are 3 who are headed to Paris
Brittany Brown said it best.
Wait, you don't know who Brittany Brown is? Before we find out what she said, maybe it’s best to point out who she is. Because that's kind of the point.
After the former University of Iowa sprinter earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic team with a second-place finish in the 200 meters, she took to social media to express frustration with Olympic Trials coverage that centered on just a few hand-picked superstars. We all have stories, Brown basically told the world, and they're all pretty good.
She is so correct. There will be approximately 10,500 athletes at the Paris Olympics that begin Friday and run through Aug. 11. Every one of them has a story to tell, every one of them had a dream to be there. Heck, even I had a dream to be there when I was a kid. (Oddly, my dream was to cover them. Apparently even as a child I loved telling stories more than I liked working out.)
Ditto for coaches, trainers, parents, grandparents and hometowns. The career of an Olympian, of an elite athlete, is no solo trek. It takes a village, and not just the Olympic village.
No one's story is the same. Meet three Iowa-connected athletes whose stories you might or might not catch on TV.
The happiest Olympian in Paris
Athletics is known for its podium finishes. For Brittany Brown, the U.S. Olympic Trials gave her more than a podium; they gave her a soapbox.
The former Iowa sprinter took to The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter to throw a little shade, perhaps at NBC, for how its track coverage zoomed in on a smattering of athletes. Certainly Sha’carri Richardson, Noah Lyles and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone were worthy spotlight runners but what about everyone else?
Because here she was. Brown, 29, had never won a high school title; heck she only made it to state once in her native California. She never won an NCAA title. She did win Big Ten titles and took a few victory laps at the Drake Relays over the years. She didn’t have a pro contract waiting for her when she graduated.
And now, after running 21.9 seconds in the 200 meters – from the outside lane 9 with a wide turn no less – she was an Olympian after finishing second to Gabby Thomas at the trials and beating Richardson, who was fourth.
Brown’s (quite understandable) giddiness about her Olympian status seemingly has not ended, and people have noticed. When she tried on her Ralph Lauren-designed Opening Ceremony outfit, she was over the moon.
“The lady was like, ‘You’re just so happy, you’re one of the happiest people we’ve seen come in,’” Brown told Charity Nebbe on Iowa Public Radio’s “Talk of Iowa.” “I was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m trying this stuff on. I can’t stop smiling.’”
Brown just signed a new contract with Nike and her career is peaking at the right time. She has the third-fastest 200 time in the world this year, making a podium finish in Paris a real possibility.
More: “Talk of Iowa” full interview; Dargan Southard’s story in The Des Moines Register. The track magazine site Citius Mag posted an interview with Brown, with video, last week.
The first round of the women’s 200 meters will be at 3:55 a.m. on Aug. 4. Semifinals are at 1:45 p.m. on Aug. 5 with the final at 2:40 p.m. on Aug. 6.
Not just laps, but a full circle
Kelly Parriott remembers Karissa Schweizer’s moments of awe.
The Dowling track coach saw the young star’s jaw drop when she first saw the Nike campus in Oregon on a trip to track nationals as a high school freshman. She watched her scurry off to get autographs when the national meet was held at Drake Stadium.
Now Schweizer is a two-time Olympian who competes for the Nike-sponsored Bowerman Track Club and she’s the one signing autographs. The Urbandale native will compete in the 5,000 and 10,000 races in Paris. She also competed in the Tokyo Olympics.
“There have been so many full-circle moments for her,” Parriott said.
Schweizer has running in her DNA – her grandfather, Frank, was a longtime Dowling track and cross-country coach and her siblings were also outstanding in the sport. But it’s not just genetics that has propelled Schweizer, Parriott said.
“Like every freshman she was small and nervous but that tenacity to compete always existed,” Parriott said. “You could see that fight at practice and it’s evident in someone who has what it takes to make it to an Olympic level.”
Schweizer led Dowling to three state cross-country titles but truly blossomed at Missouri. She won the NCAA cross-country title in 2016, NCAA outdoor 5,000 titles in 2017 and 2018, NCAA indoor 5,000 titles in 2017 and 2018 and the NCAA 3,000 title in 2017.
By then, Parriott knew there were big things in store for Schweizer and has enjoyed watching it unfold.
“It’s pretty neat to know her as a young kid and know this was a dream of hers that she was able to fulfill,” Parriott said. “I get choked up when I think about it. She’s living the dream. It’s a wonderful, beautiful thing.”
More: The Des Moines Register’s Tommy Birch recently profiled Schweizer. My Iowa Writers Collaborative colleague John Naughton wrote about Schweizer and her family in 2017.
The first round of the women’s 5,000 is Aug. 2 at 11 a.m. The final is at 2:10 p.m. on Aug. 5. The 10,000, a finals-only race, is at 1:55 p.m. on Aug. 9. Big Grove Brewery and Tap Room, 555 17th St., in Des Moines will host watch parties for Schweizer’s races.
Row, row, row from the Mississippi to the Olympics
When it comes to rowing, the best in the world show up in places like the Henley Royal Regatta in England or the Head of the Charles in Boston. Here in the Midwest, we’ve got the Mississippi River as an Olympic training ground.
There’s where Emily Delleman, a 2016 Davenport Central graduate, learned her sport. Elite rowing has sprung from a YMCA club in the Quad Cities and its athletes have nabbed college scholarships throughout the U.S.
But even before she got to Stanford, where she was a two-time All-American, Delleman was already a world champion. In 2016, Delleman and her teammate Caroline Sharis won the double sculls gold at the World Rowing Junior Championship in Rotterdam, Netherlands. (In sculling events, a rower uses two oars; other rowing events just one.)
Delleman started as a swimmer, but learned about rowing through some teammates. The club in the Quad Cities is coached by Peter Sharis, a cardiologist who was a 1992 Olympian.
Now, it’s Delleman’s turn.
“It’s a nice little check box for all the hard work put in in the last decade or so,” she told KWKC earlier this month.
Olympic rowing begins on Saturday, July 27. Delleman’s event, the women’s quadruple sculls, is at 5:50 a.m. CDT.
Jane Burns is a former sports and features writer for the Des Moines Register, as well as other publications and websites. She’s a past winner of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Mel Greenberg Award for her coverage of women’s basketball. Over the course of her career she’s covered pretty much everything, which is why her as-yet-to-be-written memoir will be called “Cheese and Basketball: Stories From a Reporter Who Has Covered Everything.”
I’m happy to join fellow Iowa writers and journalists as part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. The collaborative is 60 writers throughout the state - likely some familiar names to Iowa readers - publishing on topics ranging from politics to food to sports and so much more. A subscription (paid or free) gets you a Sunday roundup of all the writers’ work that week.
Meet the writers here, and see for yourself the great variety the collaborative offers.
Thank you for sharing these Iowans' stories. I'm excited to keep an eye out for them!
Thanks, Jane. It’s always fun to have more people, especially women, to watch for in the Olympics.