Monday’s race could have been the Olympics in Tokyo. Instead, it was Hall High in West Hartford.
It was July 27 and under different circumstances, Elle Purrier might have been in Tokyo, competing for the United States in the Olympics.
Instead, on Monday night, she found herself running in an 800-meter race at Hall High School in front of a sparse crowd.
In February at the Millrose Games in New York City, Purrier, of Montgomery, Vt., broke Mary Slaney’s 37-year-old indoor mile record by almost four seconds, winning the race in 4:16.85.
Then coronavirus forced the sports world, including track meets, to shut down with the Olympics pushed to at least until 2021. And all there was left was training and trying to stay in shape for when track meets resumed again, whenever that would be.
Apparently for Purrier and a group of her New Balance-Boston teammates, training went well, with Purrier running the fifth best outdoor time in the world Monday night, winning the 800 in 2:00.70.
“Honestly, [track meets are] kind of like from a distant memory,” Purrier said. “It’s the same kind of feel but it kind of reminds me of a high school meet because it’s so small.”
Monday’s meet, which was highlighted by high-powered fields in the women’s and men’s 800, was the third of three “Track is Back” meets hosted by Hartford’s Hartbeat Track Club and 2-4-1 Sports, an organization founded by Steve Boyle which promotes a multi-sport approach through camps and clinics. The events are meant to encourage competition, as other forms of athletics resume around Connecticut.
“It goes back to early June when the governor announced in late June they were going to allow sporting events to start happening,” said Jeff Billing, the boys track and cross country coach at Hall and a Hartbeat coach. “I texted Steve Boyle, who was planning to do some camps, and I said, ‘Hey, is there any way we can do a track meet?’ We put together a proposal of the different things we were going to put into place to mitigate risk.”
That included limiting spectators, requiring masks for everyone including athletes (except when they were competing or cooling down or warming up), having runners run in every other lane for the sprints and questioning everybody who entered the track complex about coronavirus symptoms and exposure to those with the virus. The field was capped at 150 athletes.
“We’re the only track meet like this that’s going on that I’m aware of in the Northeast, New England,” Billing said. “There have been a couple of elite very small races that have been put on, but nothing community-track-wise.”
With recent Loomis Chaffee graduate and rising Princeton freshman Matthew Farrell pacing the women’s 800, Purrier put on a show, running her personal best in the event, with New Balance teammates Heather MacLean (2:01.40) and Siofra Cleirigh Buttner (2:02.77) finishing second and third, respectively.
“It’s kind of weird to think right now if I made the [U.S.3/8 team, I’d be in Tokyo,” Purrier said. “But I also feel like I’ve had enough time to digest that that’s not happening this year. It’s still kind of weird to think about — what if?”
Colby Alexander of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., won the men’s 800 in 1:47.50 with three others (Samuel Ellison, Rob Napolitano and Johnny Gregorek) finishing under 1:48. Darius Kipyego, who will be a senior at St. Raphael Academy in Pawtucket, R.I., was the lone high school runner in the race and finished sixth in 1:48.82, the third-best high school 800 meter time this year and a Rhode Island state high school record.
“It feels great,” Alexander said. “We didn’t really know when this was going to happen again. We’ve kind of been staying in shape and ready.”
The meet offered races from 100 meters to the 5,000 meters as well as the long jump and triple jump, but no field events.
Bloomfield’s Sean Dixon-Bodie, one of the top high school jumpers in the country who is heading to LSU next month, had a personal best long jump Monday, going over the 23-foot mark for the first time with a 23-3.
“I didn’t know if I was going to be able to compete again in Connecticut before I left,” he said. “It’s amazing.”
Lori Riley can be reached at lriley@courant.com.
———
©2020 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.)
Visit The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) at www.courant.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
