Menlo News July 07, 2021

Price, Canada’s 4x400 relay takes fourth at Tokyo Olympics

Knights alum Maddy Price makes her Olympic debut
Maddy Price

8.7.2021 – UPDATE:  Maddy Price ran a brilliant race as she helped the Canadian 4x400 team take fourth in the Tokyo Games, and her Olympic debut has been a success. She ran the fastest leg for Canada with a time of 49.95, and helped put her team in medal contention. The relay took fourth, crossing the finish line in 3:21.84. The United States won gold, Poland silver and Jamaica third.

 

7.6. 2021 – Menlo School 2014 graduate and Duke All-American Maddy Price is headed to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to compete for Team Canada in track, set to start at the end of this month.

Price will run the 4x400 relay with the first round scheduled for 3:00 am PT on Aug. 5 . She is among 57 track and field athletes nominated to compete for Canada.

“It still gives me chills, and makes me emotional just thinking about it,” Price said. “It feels like a combination of so many things: dedication and passion and love and support that all went into this goal.“

Price had been racing in Europe, and had just left Germany for Scotland to visit sister Nikky ’16, who is pursuing her masters at University of St. Andrew’s. It was there Maddy learned she would be realizing the dream she had since she was in grade school: to make the Olympic team.

“It was so special to be with my sister when I found out I made it,” said Maddy, who shared her and Nikky’s overjoyed and tearful response on Instagram while mom Sarah was in the Bay Area on a video-call, also bawling. “I think it would have been hard to be in a hotel in Europe, or flying back by myself when I heard, so that was amazing to be with family. “In that moment, it really was the people and the process that went along with this journey that came to mind.”

She hadn’t seen Nikky in over a year due to training, caring for an injured foot, and as the pandemic stopped travel. It is why these Olympic Games are being held now rather than a year ago. In March 2020, Team Canada made the bold and difficult decision to withdraw from the Olympics. Days later, the Tokyo Games were cancelled.

Price made the most of that time in Olympics limbo, taking care of an injury, rehabilitating, training and coaching. After undergoing foot surgery in fall 2020, Price returned to Duke as a volunteer assistant coach, and the Blue Devils, including some of her former teammates, won the first Atlantic Coast Conference title in program history.

One of the positives to come out of athletes not being able to race or practice in usual ways was the creativity in training.

Slowed down due to her foot injury and the world in a lockdown, Price needed only to look back to her northern star, her father Shawn who had died four years ago after a battle with cancer. Shawn, an accomplished race-car driver and off-road bike racer suffered a serious accident during an off-road bike race in Mexico. Maddy and her sister Nikky were only in seventh and fifth grade, but they clearly remember his recovery and rehabilitation after 11-hour surgery. “He was very lucky to survive that crash,” Maddy said. “Once he got range of motion in knee, Cycling was something he got really into.”

Maddy remembered that during her own recovery, and used a second-hand bike for a while. Sarah reminded her that Shawn’s bike was in the garage at home, and sent it to her. The bright yellow bike still has his stickers and a couple Maddy added. “It makes me think of him, and it’s bright yellow so just gives off good energy.”

A couple months ago: Team Canada announced that there would be Olympic Trials. For Price and those that train outside of Canada, the two-week mandatory quarantine is tricky. The athletes were not obligated to compete at Trials, and instead the national team will be decided by a committee who will look at who made the time standard, who is the top 48 in the world based on an algorithm of head to head races, past performances, and trials among other criteria.

 “Because it’s invite-only, it does make it a little more complicated, a little more uncertain but that’s just something we’ve all gotten used to with COVID,” Price said in June, “I’m just doing what I can, running as fast as I can and doing all that’s in my control.”

Price, whose parents are Canadian, started as a professional track athlete in 2019, competing in the IAAF World Relays in Japan, World University Games in Italy, and the IAAF World Championships in Qatar. Now she will be an athlete on the biggest world stage. She remembers watching Allyson Felix, the most decorated female track Olympian, win gold in the 200 in London in 2012. She would later get to race with Felix, but has lasting memories of the veteran sprinter, who will be competing in the 400 in Tokyo.

“She had gotten second in that event and was just searching for that gold, and when she won gold, it was a moment I will remember forever,“ Price said. “I’ve had a photo of her on my wall since I was a kid. I remember the first couple of times I ran against her: first when I was at Duke and we raced at the Mount Sac Relays, and thinking ‘Oh my gosh this is crazy.’ and later in the world championships lining up against her in the mixed relay. I think that would be one of my favorite Olympic moments growing up.”

A two-time Central Coast Section champion in the 200 and 400 at Menlo, and a six-time All-American at Duke, Price competed in basketball, cross country as well, and played even more sports. 

Price’s first love was soccer, and her ambition ran high all the way back to even before Menlo Middle School. It was in middle school that Coach Jorge Chen urged her to run.

“I always wanted to be at the top of sport no matter what sport that was,” she said. “Track was starting to get very interesting but at the time, but I had always envisioned myself going to the World Cup in soccer, trying to make it to the Olympics.”

Price’s parents exposed Nikky, an NCAA Div. I lacrosse player, and Maddy to a high level of sports. Their late father Shawn was a professional race car driver and off-road motorcyclist.

“I always dreamed of that,” Maddy said. “As I came out of Duke it started to become a reality. My younger self would be so excited right now, and I try to always remember that and enjoy and cherish where I’m at because I wanted this for so long so enjoying this process is the biggest part of it.”

Price will continue to work out in North Carolina before she departs for Gifu, Japan, where Team Canada will acclimate to the time change and weather while training.

- Pam Tso McKenney | Menlo Athletics