Five years ago, Emma Coburn came to London Stadium as a wide-eyed collegiate runner with the University of Colorado, a few months short of her 22nd birthday, soaking in the reality of making her first Olympic team.
Already, she was showing promise as a young steeplechaser, and this trip was about gaining critical experience at the international level. In the final, she set a two-second personal best time and finished ninth after being out-leaned at the line — an outcome that bothered her then.
“I hope to use this and my experiences in the future to prepare myself to race these women and hopefully do better against them in the future, finish a little higher up,” she said at the time.
On Friday, she returned to the same track and made good on that promise, stunning the track and field world to win the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the world championships and, along with American Courtney Frerichs, lead the United States to an improbable 1-2 finish.
“I am so happy. I can’t get the smile off my face,” she told The Denver Post from London. “I can’t believe it’s real.”
As Coburn raced toward the final water barrier, she remembered what her coach and fiancé Joe Bosshard told her before the race: “Make sure the last water jump is powerful.”
By her side with a crowd of 60,000 fans roaring was Kenya’s Hyvin Kiyeng Jepkemoi, the 2015 world champion, and Frerichs. Their feet hit the top of the barrier, and Coburn and Frerichs pushed off forcefully, striding perfectly out of the water. Jepkemoi faltered ever so slightly, landed short and lost her momentum.
That was Coburn’s opening.
She pushed to the lead, glided over the final barrier on the homestretch and bolted to the finish, raising her hands a world champion. Coburn’s time of 9 minutes, 2.58 seconds was the sixth-fastest time ever run in the event and broke both the championship and her own American record, the latter of which she lowered by five seconds. Jepkemoi finished in third in 9:04.03.
Frerichs — who won an NCAA steeplechase title in 2016 running for New Mexico before joining the Bowerman Track Club in Portland, Ore. — finished in 9:03.77, the No. 7 time ever run in the event and an improvement of nearly 16 seconds over her previous best.
No American had medaled in the event at the world championships, let alone won it. The only male or female American ever to win gold in the event in the Olympics was Horace Ashenfelter in 1952. The last 1-2 finish by Americans at any event longer than 400 meters came during the Stockholm Olympics in 1912.
Almost a year ago to the day, Coburn stood on the podium at the Rio Olympic games, her family in the stands, cradling a bronze medal — the first Olympic medal by an American woman in the event. Next to her, one step above, was Kenyan-born gold medalist Ruth Jebet of Bahrain, the world record-holder in the event who had long finished ahead of her in international competition.
On Friday, Coburn once again faced Jebet, who led through the first 2,000 meters of the race and threw a punishing surge midway through to winnow the field of 15 to six runners up front. But Jebet eventually faded to fifth, and the six finishers right behind Coburn and Frerichs were either of Kenyan or Ethiopian descent, a remarkable result considering the East Africans’ long dominance of distance events at Olympics and world championships, including steeplechase.
“I knew I was fit, and my training’s all gone really well,” said Coburn, 26. “Everything has indicated that I am in PR shape, and I’m healthy. But … it’s the best steeple field ever. The Kenyan and Bahraini athletes are just at the top of their game right now, so I knew I had to run a perfect race just to be on the podium.”
But everything ultimately came down to that final water jump. Coburn remembers at the 2015 world championships being in a group of five at the final water barrier. Fatigued, she emerged from the pit last and finished fifth. Last year in Rio, she was in a battle for second at the final water jump and emerged slow again, ending up third. This time, Coburn was determined not to do the same.
“I had a bitter memory of those two water jumps and really wanted to give it my all and really focus on my form. And going into it, I was feeling really strong,” she said.
It’s hard to imagine this race going any better for her, and it capped a year of remarkable progress and change. She left her longtime coach Mark Wetmore seven weeks after the Rio Olympics to be coached by Bosshard, whom she first met as a teenager in Crested Butte growing up. The couple will marry this fall.
“To be honest, I had never dreamed of winning,” she said. “I dreamed of being on the podium. I dreamed that at some point in my career that nine minutes was a very attainable goal … but never did I imagine it would be a world championship run.”
