Former Clovis High track star Jenna Prandini dreams of gold medal at Tokyo Olympics

The times were fast, one on top of the other. Jenna Prandini hit a personal best in all three heats in her specialty event, the 200 meters, at the U.S. Olympic Trials. She breezed through the first round and the semifinals and finished second in the finals, and it’s an easy leap that the former Clovis High sprint star hit every step there on the way to the Tokyo Olympics.

After two severe foot injuries that forced her to the sidelines for extended periods and having her training schedule tossed up in the air due to the coronavirus pandemic and all of the uncertainty, Prandini and coach Edrick Floreal somehow timed it up perfectly, had it all working.

A sprint of 22.14 seconds, followed by a 21.99 and a 21.89 can be very persuasive.

But that wasn’t exactly the case, and that only sets up a tantalizing week of possibilities for Prandini, who will run the 100 meters as well as the 200 in Tokyo and also is among six U.S. sprinters available for the 4x100 relay.

Simply, Prandini and her coach were expecting her to go faster.

“That’s the most exciting part,” Prandini said. “I finished both of my races, the 100 and the 200, and there’s so much more that I can do. The 100, I didn’t execute that well at all. The 200, there’s so much room for improvement and stuff that I know I can get better with.

“Even when I was talking to my coach directly after the race, he was telling me all this stuff that we were going to do once we got back into practice and that’s what we’ve been doing. It’s exciting to know that wasn’t my ceiling and I still have a lot more room to grow.”

Floreal was more blunt, and no less bullish on their prospects.

“I feel like we left a lot there,” Floreal said. “My prediction was 21.75 in the 200 and that wouldn’t have been enough to win with the way Gabby (Thomas) ran, but that was my prediction.

There’s more there, after fast Olympic Trials runs

“We were in good enough shape training and the numbers she has run in practice says she could run 21.75. There is a lot more there.”

The women’s 200 gold medalist at the 2016 Rio de Janerio Games, Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson, ran a 21.78 in the finals. In 2012 in London, Allyson Felix, who in Tokyo will represent the United States in her fifth Olympics, won the gold in 21.88 seconds. In 2008 in Beijing, Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell-Brown took home the gold with a 21.74. In 2004 in Atlanta, Campbell won in 22.05.

Thomas won the 200 meters at the U.S. Olympic Trials in 21.61, the fastest time in the world this year, a meet record and the third-fastest time ever in the event.

Prandini is not far off, and to squeeze every tenth of a second out of that gap, Floreal had her go back to their home base in Austin, Texas, rather than get in a race of two in Europe before heading to Tokyo and a busy schedule that starts on Friday with first-round heats in the 100 meters.

Coming out of the U.S. Olympic Trials, the priority was executing throughout the races from reaction time, the start.

In the 200 meters finals, Floreal said, Prandini didn’t push out of the blocks as she had in the first round and in the semifinals. She stood up, used all of her reserve energy to get back in the race and by the time she got back in it she didn’t have enough left. In the prelims and the semis, she had executed from the beginning of the race and was able to run relaxed through the end of it, and in the final that did not happen.

It’s a matter of getting from A to B to C to D to E, and sometimes Prandini would try to go from A to E, skipping some steps.

“The finals, as good as it was, wasn’t Jenna’s best race,” Floreal said. “That’s why we came back here for training. I just felt we didn’t execute properly. If I felt that way I probably would have sent them to Europe to run some more high-end races, but it just needs some more repetition, I feel, and I’m glad we did it. We’re beginning to sort of connect the dots a little better and more consistently, I’ll say that.”

Training up to Olympics

Because of the injuries in 2017 and 2019 – “It was the navicular bone in my foot and any doctor or any athlete who has had it, it kind of makes you cringe when you say it, because it’s such a long recovery” – Prandini trains more often in running shoes than track spikes.

But working with a group that includes Olympic hurdler Keni Harrison, those workouts are no less competitive.

“To be honest, you can really rev up the engine as much as you want, running on cement tires or running on rubber tires,” Floreal said.

The uncertainty in Tokyo also played a role in that. With COVID-19 restrictions, there is an unknown in how much work they will be able to get in once in Japan. But the plan is similar to the one they took into the U.S. Olympic Trials – Prandini didn’t run a race for more than six weeks before taking the track at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., working instead on connecting all of the links in that chain, A through E.

That, obviously, worked out well.

“It has been five years, usually it’s only four, and it has been a long, hard process, actually,” said Prandini, who ran the 200 meters in Rio in 2016. “I battled through a lot of injuries in that time, 2017 and 2019, actually both times at the U.S. championships, you didn’t see me perform well there because I had to drop out of the races because my foot was broken. I feel like I’ve stayed training and I’ve been ready to perform really well, been in great shape, but my body wasn’t cooperating and staying healthy.

“It’s going to be exciting for me. I know there’s no fans and obviously it’s going to be a whole lot different than any other OIympics, but I’m just really excited to get the opportunity to get out there and compete and represent the United States.”

This story was originally published July 25, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Former Clovis High track star Jenna Prandini dreams of gold medal at Tokyo Olympics."