A Fantastic Effort From Lizzie Bird

Have you ever wondered why the 3,000-meter steeplechase is called that?

The 3,000-meter part is obvious. Why steeplechase, though?

TigerBlog always assumed it was from the horse version of the steeplechase, and it sort of is. But then where did the term come from in the first place?

Well, it seems that the explanation is a pretty good one.

The race originated in England. Apparently, runners would race from the church in one town to the church in the next town, which presumably was longer than 3,000 meters. 

Still, it was a race from church to church, or, steeple to steeple. In other words, the runners were chasing the steeple of the neighboring church, or, simply put, steeplechasing. This was true whether it was humans or horses.

That sounds like as good an explanation as any. 

Also, the English countryside is filled with stone walls and streams. When the race was formalized as a track event, the walls were replaced with hurdles and the streams were replaced with a water jump.

TB isn't sure where the 3,000 meter distance came from. TB found this about the race from a Business Insider story:

The modern 3,000-meter steeplechase track event — with the barriers and the water pit — first originated at Oxford University in the mid-19th century. It was then included in the English Championship in 1879. In the Olympics, men have raced the steeplechase since 1920, while the women, somewhat shockingly, only first raced it at the Olympics in 2008 in Beijing.

Today, the race features five barriers: four hurdles plus the barrier before the water pit. For the men, those barriers are 36 inches, and for the women they are 30 inches. The water pit, meanwhile, is 12 feet long for both.

TB has always liked to watch the steeplechase, going all the way back to when he'd watch the Olympics on TV as a kid. He's liked it even more the last few Olympiads, as Princeton has had great success in the event.

It started with Donn Cabral, who reached the final in 2012 and 2016. This time around, in Tokyo, Princeton has runners in both the men's and the women's races.

Ed Trippas ran for Australia in the men's steeplechase last week, and though he didn't reach the final, he did do an amazing job in reaching the Games in the first place and then being competitive once he got there. TB hopes he'll be back in three years.

On the women's side, there was Lizzie Bird, who came to Princeton from her native England in 2013 and became a Heps cross country champion and a two-time Heps champion in the steeplechase. She went from there to become a world class steeplechaser, which in England is even more important, given its role in the formation of the event.

Bird qualified for the Tokyo Olympics as well, and then she reached the final as one of the "next six fastest time" runners beyond the three automatic qualifiers from each heat. In doing so, she became the first British woman ever to reach the steeplechase final at an Olympic Games.

The final was yesterday early morning in Princeton, midday in England and evening in Tokyo. Bird's qualifying time was 9:24.24, and her personal best (and British record time) was 9:22.80.

She shredded both of those in the final.

In fact, she ran a 9:19.68 in the final yesterday. The time earned her a ninth-place finish, not to mention a new British record.

Bird became the second Princeton women's track and field alum to finish ninth in an Olympic event in two days, after Julia Ratcliffe did so in the hammer throw Monday. 

For Bird, the extraordinary performance came a few years after she'd considered quitting competitive running due to injuries. She said this in an athleticsweekly.com story:

"I didn't want to have another injury that would prevent me from just going out for a hike or an easy run. My coach [Pat McCurry] said he could get me running 9:30, so I thought I would give it one last go. When I thought, 'I don't care anymore,' I started having fun and running well so didn't want to stop." 

Apparently, the coach was wrong. She wasn't running 9:30. She was running sub-9:20 – and reaching the Olympic final. And finishing ninth at that, in national record time.