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One Event, Two American Record Holder Best FriendsPublished by
The Great Jenny Simpson and Emma Coburn Steeplechase RivalryPublished by Newsweek on August 26, 2014 Before they shared the distinctions of being NCAA champions and Olympians and of holding the American record in the same event—the 3,000-meter steeplechase—Jenny Simpson and Emma Coburn shared something more intimate: a room. It was the autumn of 2008. Coburn, an unassuming, flaxen-haired freshman from the ski-bum sanctuary of Crested Butte, Colorado, high school class numbered 19 students, matriculated at the University of Colorado (CU). That same fall Simpson, then Jenny Barringer, was a senior returning to CU’s Boulder campus as a woman on fire. Fresh from a ninth-place finish in the steeplechase at the Olympic Games in Beijing in which she set the American record, Barringer was on the bell lap of a collegiate career in which she had already won a pair of NCAA championships in that event. Barringer was about to embark on the most historic season in the history of women’s collegiate track and field. Coburn aspired to eclipse, for the first time in her life, a 20-mile training week. Colorado head coach Mark Wetmore and associate head coach Heather Burroughs threw the unlikely pair together as roommates on road trips. “It was couched to me,” says Simpson, who might have rolled her eyes a bit, “as an opportunity to have a positive impact on a young person joining the team.” Not long after the two first checked into a room together, the awestruck frosh stole away to phone her parents. “Guess who I’m rooming with?” she boasted. Months passed. Barringer added a third NCAA steeplechase championship to her résumé while also breaking six NCAA indoor and outdoor records. Years passed. Barringer got married and included Coburn as a bridesmaid, while Coburn won a pair of NCAA championships in the steeplechase event and a third time finished second. By 2012, it was Coburn representing the United States in the Olympic steeplechase final (like Simpson, finishing ninth) while Simpson had moved on to the 1,500, a.k.a., the metric mile. Read the full article at: www.newsweek.com
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