Hasay Goes Out on Top

It was Kismet in a way at Hayward Field on the University Of Oregon campus in Eugene on Sunday, when Jordan Hasay won the 1500 meter run for junior women. It was certainly fitting at the very least, when the senior from Mission Prep in San Luis Obispo closed out her prep career in style with a victory.

Audio Clip: Jordan Hasay at USA Juniors 2009

What looked to some to be easy, if not predestined, was not necessarily as simple an affair as one might have perceived. Jordan had run in the senior 1500 on Thursday & finished 20th in a time of 4:19.61. Now that is an excellent time for any high school runner but after making the semi-finals last year & then running a record 4:14.50 , it had to be a bit dispiriting. Of course placing twentieth is not what people expect of Jordan and that is the rub. After winning the Footlocker National Cross Country Championship in 2005 there were those, who immediately assumed that she would win all four years, which is too much to ask as well as patently unfair. It did set in motion expectations that were quite demanding.

Jordan, of course, has always set high expectations for herself as all athletes, who are ever to achieve anything must do, and the race was not up to her standards. It left her feeling out of sorts and less than twenty-four hours prior to race time Jordan was thinking of passing on the junior race. She spoke with her parents & her father simply stated why not run the race & go out on top, which after some thought made sense to her. So there she was on Sunday afternoon toeing the line with the best junior women in the nation, many of whom were already running collegiately. From the blast of the gun it was Jordan, who took the lead & pressed the pace, followed closely by Morgane Gay, while the rest of the field ran about five meters back off of the first turn. By the time they had run 330 Hasay & Gay had drawn ahead of the rest of the pack &, as Jordan surged on the turn with Gay following, it was from that point onward a two woman race. Corey Connor & Joan Kanarkiewicz. Led the chase pack another fifteen meters closely followed by Oregon preps Taylor Wallace & Kayleigh Tyerman & the rest.

Hasay rolled through the 800 in about 2:19 with Gay in pursuit. The chase pack was another 35 meters back. Over the last two laps the gap between Jordan & Gay was between three & five meters as Gay gamely held on to the leader but Jordan accelerated during the last 200 to grab a solid victory over the game Gay. Taylor Wallace closed well to take over third to claim the bronze & was followed by Laken Skidmore & Corey Conner. Monica Kinney took 6th ahead of Tyerman and Chelsea Blanchard on Indiana U. placed 8th. Behind her everyone else was a collegiate runner.

At the end of the day Sunday Jordan had gone out on top & collected her third junior title. It was somewhat poetic, for in Cross Country she had become the first girl to claim a title, lose & then reclaim the title to go out on top. It says much about her spirit. Her time incidentally, is the best ever for the event save her own time in 2007. Few have come even close and only four girls have ever broken 4:20: Kim Gallagher, Suzy Favor, Lynn Jennings & Sarah Bowman with the closest time being the 4:18.81 of Lynn Jennings. That is very good company & appropriate as well. Morgane’s time, for the record, would have been good enough to win in most of the years the event has been run in fact Taylor’s time would have won in a number of years. Hasay beat a very high caliber runner and that to seems the way it should be.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus noted that “the universe is change.” And so it goes that Jordan will move on to Oregon to compete at the college level. What the future has in store no one knows but we hope for & expect success. Still we should also reflect on what she has meant to the sport. Hers is a record of excellence with few rivals historically and her running has been a pleasure to watch. Those, who have been lucky enough to watch her race, have been fortunate. She has been a special talent and it is fitting that she left the American prep world of running seemingly the way she entered it: on top.

Junior Women 1500 Meter Run