By: Bethany Woodcock

 The Reggie Lewis Center (RLTAC) located in Roxbury, a facility that the Westborough High School track team uses weekly, was the venue for the professional women’s distance medley relay that shattered the world record this past Saturday.  Emma Coburn, Sydney McLaughlin, Brenda Martinez, and Jenny Simpson ran the world record setting relay of 1200, 400, 800, 1600 meters, respectively, with a time of 10:40.31. This beat the old record of 10:42.57 set by Sarah Brown, Mahagony Jones, Megan Krumpoch, and Brenda Martinez in 2015.

Coburn started off the race with the difficult distance of 1200 meters, a distance not quite commonly run besides in this relay. Coburn was nearly caught by the European team, coming in with a time of 3:18.40. Her time was three seconds slower than the previous world record 1200 meter split which caused concerns amongst her fellow teammates, knowing that they would have to run faster to compensate for the time lost. Coburn’s specialty is the 3000 meter steeplechase, so the 1200 leg she was asked to run today was certainly a change of pace.

The baton was passed to an All-American, national high school record holder, Sydney McLaughlin from New Jersey, who had to sprint the 400 meter leg. McLaughlin is only 17 years old and is competing with this team of professionals. She raced in the Olympic trials this past summer in Rio and she made it as far as the 400 meter hurdle semifinals. She has not had nearly as much experience with track as some of her opponents have, and yet, this was not a factor in her race, as she split 52.32 seconds.

Brenda Martinez then grabbed the baton from McLaughlin and ran an aggressive 800. Martinez was a part of the former world record holding team, but managed to run her split on Saturday four seconds faster than she did previously. In 2013, she earned a bronze medal at the World Championships in the 800. She ran a 2:01.92 to give Jenny Simpson a lead on the record as she anchored with the 1600.

Simpson has had many races under her belt, but this one was something different. The 1600 meters is the longest distance in the relay, and it could easily make or break the world record. Simpson had the Boston crowd on their feet.   The 30 year old had skeptics shell shocked. She crossed the line in 4:27.66, which helped to break the distance medley world record by two seconds.

The girls embrace each other with big grins. They did it: they had just broke the world record.
In an NBC Sports interview, after the race, Simpson commented, “Being on the mountaintop- it’s so much better when you are with friends.”

Sources:

http://www.nbcsports.com/video/team-usa-sets-new-world-record-womens-distance-medley-relay