EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Steeplechaser Olivia Markezich stumbled through the water after one jump, then barely regained her balance, only to tumble to the ground after clearing the final barrier.
With the finish line and a potential trip to Paris in sight, those falls dropped her from second to sixth place Thursday night. They also offered a painful reminder of what’s really at stake at Olympic track and field trials.
“My legs couldn’t keep up with my heart,” said the 23-year-old who just recently turned pro.
Markezich scrambled her way back to her feet to finish the race, but her agonizing final quarter-lap will go down as one of those tough-to-watch moments that this track meet, and this event, always serves up.
“I was that close to making the team and it slipped out from my fingers,” she said.
Markezich said she’d never fallen in the event. Not even in practice.
She was in the thick of the race for one of the top three spots to the Olympics heading into the final 200 meters. It’s a 3,000-meter race, though, where tumbles, plunges and falls happen all time, especially as the finish line nears and those barriers only appear to get taller.
She cleared the water barrier, but began to lose her form upon landing on the edge of the water. Her legs turned wobbly.
She cleared the final barrier on the homestretch, only to have her leg buckle upon landing. She fell to the ground in a race where Valerie Constien won, Courtney Wayment took second and Marisa Howard wound up third to make the team.
Markezich picked herself up, and with her bib number falling off, steadily headed toward the finish line. Her time of 9 minutes, 14.87 seconds was a personal best.
“That’s kind of a silver lining,” said Markezich, who finished second in the NCAA championships this month for Notre Dame. “I’m really just happy that I stayed tough mentally the whole time.”
Constien feels Markezich’s pain. She tore her ACL over a water jump a year ago in a meet in Doha.
“Steeplechase is a crazy event. People fall down, people get back up, some people don’t finish the race. You never know what can happen,” said the 28-year-old Constien, who finished third at the 2021 trials to earn a spot at the Tokyo Games. “It sucks. She’s just got to dust herself off, get back up.”
That’s precisely her intention.
“It was right there,” Markezich said. “It’s my first my first meet as a pro and I still have years left. I’ll be back.”
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