Back In The Saddle

Brown graduate Anna Pierce had a huge breakthrough in 2009, running a sub-four 1,500 meters while also crashing through the two-minute barrier in the 800.

When I attended the annual USA Track & Field Convention in 2010, she was one of a handful of athletes who had earned a life-sized cutout display on the wall of the conference wing of the hotel.

The next season wasn’t quite as good, but not far off pace. Then came a pretty disastrous 2011. Her best 1,500m time was 4:10.38 and she didn’t break two minutes in the 800 all year long. I saw her at the U.S. Open at Madison Square Garden in late January of this year and she was clearly struggling to keep up. Some journalists were beginning to wonder if she was nearing the end.

We are proud to say that Anna Pierce is certainly back. Today in Brussels, she ran 1:59.16 at the Memorial Van Damme, a Diamond League meet. That is less than four-tenths shy of her all-time best. She also ran 4:05 a few times this summer and looks poised to get faster in 2013.

Congrats, Anna!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 7th, 2012 at 4:13 pm. It is filed under Alumni, Spotlight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.