Mainer squeezes into steeplechase finals

Mainer squeezes into steeplechase finals
BY MIKE LOWE
Blethen Maine Newspapers

BEIJING -- There were long, anxious moments for the athlete -- and for her parents, half a world away.
Did Anna Willard, the Greenwood native and Telstar High graduate, run fast enough in the women's Olympic 3,000-meter steeplechase heats Friday to qualify for the finals on Sunday?

Willard stood on the track at Beijing's National Stadium, looking up at the scoreboard, waiting nervously for the results to be posted.

Back home in Maine, Nancy Willard and her husband, Al, were looking at the results on the Internet and thinking the worst.

"I knew she finished sixth in her heat,'' said Nancy Willard, in a phone interview. "But I couldn't tell her time. I thought it was 9:30 something and I said, 'That's not going to qualify her.' "

Well, Anna Willard's time was actually 9 minutes, 28.52 seconds -- good enough to qualify.

Willard will take the 11th-fastest time from Friday's heats into the inaugural Olympic steeplechase gold medal run at 9:30 a.m. EDT Sunday.

"It's exciting,'' said Nancy Willard. "It's a big step.''

Nancy Willard actually found out her daughter had qualified when a Boston Globe reporter called her at home. She had to run out to tell her husband, who had left the house to tend to horses on their farm.

Anna Willard, her blond hair streaked with purple on Friday (she tends to change her hair color), actually managed to find out she had qualified when she reached the mixed zone, where athletes stop to have interviews with the media.

She had given up waiting for the results to be posted outside in the stadium and figured "there'd be TVs inside where I could find out.''

Her reaction was one of relief and excitement.

"I was just hoping that (her time) would be enough,'' she said.

She'll be joined in the finals by American teammate Jennifer Barringer, who finished third in her heat with a time of 9:29.20. The two have been the best Americans in the event for two years now.

"It's going to be really great to (race) her again,'' said Barringer. "She and I have both worked so hard and both deserved to have really good prelims. So I'm very happy and honored to join her in the finals in two days.''

The 24-year-old Willard, who now lives in Ann Arbor, Mich., was with the lead four runners for about five laps. But they began to pull away with three laps to go, slowly opening a large gap.

"I was just trying my hardest,'' said Willard. "I don't know if I started feeling worse or they were picking it up. I was just trying my best.

"I'm like, 'Just stay in it, just stay in it.' So with two laps to go I said, 'You can't quit now.' "

No, because she was being pushed from behind as well. So Willard, who has one of the best kicks in steeplechase, pushed herself to the end.

She knows this wasn't her best race, which gives her confidence for Sunday's final. "I didn't feel super great to be honest,'' she said. "Sunday should be a little better.'' And she's already formulating her game plan.

"In the final, if anything, I'm going to try to be little more conservative and try to pick people off,'' she said. "Because I know if I feel comfortable I can kick pretty hard. It's just getting into that comfort zone enough.''

http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/5321363.html