Nine athletes from six Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) schools will compete in the Rio Olympics which begin this weekend in Brazil.
The MEAC contingent consists of Hampton products Yvette Lewis (Panama), Brandon Jones (Belize), Francena McCorory (USA), Coppin State’s Christina Epps (USA), Norfolk State’s Chris Brown, Augusta University alum Patrick Reed (USA), former Bethune-Cookman athletes Ronnie Ash (USA), Eric Cray (Philippines) and current Savannah State student Thierry Sawadogo (Burkina Faso).
A number of track experts describe Lewis as the greatest female athlete who has never competed in the Olympics. She is the only female athlete with a sub 12.7 time in the 100-meter hurdles and a distance of more than 45 feet in the triple jump. She will make her Olympic debut when she competes in the 100-meter hurdles as a member of the Panamanian team.
"It's pretty major for me, because I'll be representing Panama and my family," said Lewis. "Not a lot of people get to compete in the Olympics, but it won't hit me until I'm on the plane.’’
Lewis is eligible to represent Panama even though she was not born in that country because her mother is Panamanian. She ran for the USA until 2012 and twice narrowly missed qualifying for the Olympic Games.
Lewis says she dreamed of competing in the Olympics ever since she was in elementary school. She had a stellar collegiate career at Hampton, where she was an eight-time All-MEAC performer and two-time NCAA champion. But it wasn’t until she graduated and moved to California to train professionally that she realized her dream could become a reality.
“You see the same people in Olympics that you’re competing against,’’ Lewis says. “When I was able to keep up with them, I said ‘OK. I can do this.’’
At that point, Lewis says her training at Hampton kicked in.
“I took what I learned mentally and physically at Hampton and it carried me,’’ she says. “You have to be tough. You have to be strong.’’
Lewis says her goal in Rio is to advance out of each round and qualify for the finals.
“As long as I give it my best, I will be satisfied,’’ she says.
Jones’ Olympic journey was nearly sidetracked when he had to undergo surgery for polyps on his vocal chords a little more than two weeks before the start of the Rio Games. The polyps and subsequent surgery wreaked havoc with Jones’ training regimen and made it difficult for him to talk. But he was undaunted.
“There is no way I wasn’t going to compete,’’ says Jones, who will represent Belize, his father’s native country. “It was harder to run certain a speed and harder to breathe. It’s been challenging.’’
Jones, who is 6-6, is mainly a triple jumper. But he also has outstanding speed. He finished fifth in the 200 meters at the Central American Championships in June with a time of 21.92 – first among Belizean runners – in addition to setting a meet record with a distance of 53-2 ½ in the triple jump.
The Belizean delegation decided to send him to Rio to compete in the 200. Belize has had 59 athletes compete in the Olympics since 1968 and none have won a medal. The Belizean delegation figured Jones could end that drought competing in the 200 even though he will being going against the likes of Usain Bolt, Justin Gatlin and LaShawn Merritt.
“It’s going to be a tough race,’’ Jones says. “I’m going to take it round-by-round as long as I stay determined.’’
Epps defied the odds to become Coppin State’s first-ever Olympian. She will compete in the triple jump after doctors said it unlikely that she would compete at a high level following a torn ACL in 2012, her sophomore year at Coppin. The injury robbed Epps of a shot at competing in the 2012 Olympic Trials ahead of the London Games. She returned to competition her junior season wearing a brace and didn’t jump nearly as well as she had prior to the injury.
“That made me doubt myself,’’ Epps says, “At that time I didn’t think I could be great again.’’
But through her faith in God, and with Coppin coach Alecia Shields-Gadson urging her on, Epps regained her form and was better than ever in 2014. She was named MEAC Female Athlete of the Year after finishing seventh in the NCAA Indoor Championships and 14th in Outdoor Championships, where she had a personal best.
“That jump showed me that I had a lot left in me and that I had lot of potential,’’ Epps says. “It made me think that I’ve done this well with an injury, that as I moved forward there was a good chance that I could be an Olympian.’’
McCorory is making her second Olympic appearance and is the most accomplished member of the group. She won gold at the 2012 London Olympics as a member of the 4x400-meter relay team and the 2011 World Championships. She has won four consecutive medals at either the Olympic Games or outdoor world championships.
Individually, McCorory was the gold medalist in the 2014 Indoor World Championships in the 400-meter run and the mile relay. She is the NCAA and American indoor record holder in the 400 meters.
Reed is late replacement for U.S. Open champion Dustin Johnson on the U.S. men’s Olympic golf team. Johnson withdrew because of fears of the Zika virus.
Reed told Golfweek that he was “all in’’ after getting clarification about the Zika virus threat from Team USA. He was a two-time All-American and won back-to-back NCAA championships at Augusta University, an associate member of the MEAC since 2015. Reed turned pro in 2011 and is ranked No. 13 in the world.
Ash had a record-setting high school career, but he hadn’t planned to attend college until Bethune-Cookman offered him a scholarship. He won the 2009 NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships in the hurdles his sophomore season and then transferred to Oklahoma. Ash ran one season for the Sooners, earning indoor and outdoor All-American honors and setting school records in both events. Ash qualified for the Rio Olympics in the 110-meter hurdles with a second-place finish in the Olympic Trials after a run of 13:21 in the finals. He had the best times in the qualifying and semifinal rounds.
Cray, whose mother is Filipina and father is American, is representing the Philippines at his mother’s request. Cray will compete in the 400-meter hurdles. He holds the Philippine record in that event, having set it with a time of 48.98 as he finished second in the IAAF World Challenge Cup in June. Cray is a late-bloomer who didn’t begin competing in track until high school. He competed in the 400-meter hurdles at the NCAA East Regional while at Bethune-Cookman and was a member of the 4x100-meter relay team that competed in the 2009 NCAA Championships. He was a second-team All-American in the 400-meter hurdles and as a member of the 400 meter relay team in 2012 after transferring to the University of Oklahoma.
Former Norfolk State University track star Chris Brown will look to win another medal to cap his storied international career when the Bahamian sprinter competes in his fifth Summer Olympic Games this month in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Brown, who was the Spartans' first male athlete to earn Division I All-America honors in an individual event in 2000, has represented his native Bahamas in every Summer Olympics since 2000. He will again compete in both the open 400 meters and the 4x400 meter relay in Rio. Brown placed fourth in the 400m in both the 2008 and 2012 Games, and helped the Bahamas 4x400 team to a place on the medal stand with a gold in 2012 and a silver in 2008.
The 37-year old Brown will also be making history this month. According to the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) web site, no male 400-meter runner has ever competed in five Olympic Games.
"If you would have told me 20 years ago that I'd run in five Olympics, I would have told you that you are out of your mind," Brown said with a laugh. "I wouldn't think that would have been possible with the four-year gap in between.
"But you just have to stay humble and hungry, and trust yourself and your coaching. Along with staying healthy and keeping God in the mix, those are the main ingredients."
Brown has remained very competitive internationally despite specializing in an event usually dominated by younger athletes. He ran a personal-best 400 time of 44.40 seconds in 2008, but clocked a 44.54 just last year. Brown captured the gold medal at the IAAF World Indoor Championship in 2010.
Savannah State will also be represented as freshman student Thierry Sawadogo will swim for the West African country of Burkina Faso.
A native of Ouagadougou, Thierry admits competitive swimming is not a popular sport there. “Everything is about soccer,” he says. It’s one of the main reasons he decided to come to the United States to study – so he could keep swimming.
He was eight years old when he first got in the pool. At 6-8 and 21-years old, he’s the best in his country. “I grew up watching Michael Phelps. I just knew I had to swim like him.”
Thierry is studying computer science technology at Savannah State. He sees it as a way to work in a field he loves but also to bring innovation to his homeland. “Since my childhood, I loved everything about electronics. Later, I would like to open my own business in my country and help industry build software and applications.”
The Rio 2016 Summer Games officially kicks off on Friday, Aug. 5 with the opening ceremonies at Maracanã Stadium.
Tigersroar.com and Norfolk State University Sports Information also contributed to this article.
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