Not a single Bruin who competed in the recent nine-day United States track and field Olympic trials spectacle will wear the stars and stripes in Rio de Janeiro.
Former UCLA running star Meb Keflezighi will now be the sole representative from UCLA’s program after the 41-year-old qualified in the marathon back in February. One Cal Poly San Luis Obispo alumna with ties to the current UCLA track and field program came painstakingly close to joining him, however.
Sharon Day-Monroe, a volunteer assistant coach for the multi-event team, finished 22 points short of third place in the heptathlon. The Olympic team takes the top three in every event.
At the end of the first day, Day-Monroe was fourth with 3813 points, only nine points behind third place. A 10th-place finish in the long jump on Sunday and only 774 points in the javelin throw pushed her farther behind third place, and even a second place, 2:10.52 800 meter time could not help her recover the lost ground.
Tatum Souza, second on the all-time UCLA heptathlon list, finished in a distant 15th with 5662 points.
Of UCLA’s alumni, recent graduate Kylie Price came the closest to securing an Olympic berth. In the long jump semifinals, she set an all-conditions personal best by jumping 21 feet 10.25 inches, and set a wind-legal personal best of 21 feet 5.50 inches in the final the following day to take eighth place overall.
Mike Woepse, whose 18 foot 5.25 inch leap for UCLA in 2014 remains the third highest jump in school history, had the next best performance of the Bruin athletes. He cleared 18 feet 2.50 inches in the preliminary round to put him in fifth place in the competition, but he could not reach the same height in the finals. He finished ninth, eight places behind Sam Kendricks, who won and set the Olympic trials record for the event.
Zibby Boyer, another graduate in Woepse’s class who is fourth on the UCLA all-time high jump list, qualified for the finals, but failed to make it past the opening height of 5 feet 10.5 inches. Her best at UCLA was 6 feet 1.25 inches, and had she replicated that height she would have taken seventh place, though still half a foot behind the American record holder and meet champion Chaunté Low.
The most experienced of UCLA’s alumni, 2007 graduate Brandon Johnson, raced alongside 2016 graduate Nick Hartle in the 800 meters. Hartle, a member of the UCLA record-setting and first-team All-American distance medley relay team in the indoor portion of his senior season, failed to make the finals, but Johnson qualified and finished eighth.
Hurdlers Turquoise Thompson and Dawn Harper-Nelson – who ran the 400 meter hurdles and 100 meter hurdles, respectively – also failed to make the finals, but like Hartle still managed to place in the top 20 nationwide.
Harper-Nelson’s failure to even make the finals comes after she won the Olympic gold medal for the event eight years ago in Beijing and took the silver in London. Eight runners qualified for the finals, but Harper-Nelson fell .01 seconds short of the eighth spot.
A three-time top-3 finisher at the NCAA national championships in the event, Thompson was just under two seconds slower than her personal collegiate best in the prelims, and in the semifinals placed 16th with a 1:00.76.