Some stories didn't include a victory

Carondelet's Gorden fell just five meters short of the spectacular. There were broken records, comebacks, thrilling finishes, heroics, great triumphs, painful losses and many memorable races in last weekend's Penn Relays. However, the best overall performance will soon be forgotten, never having been reflected in the record books or even in the official results. But Kristen Gorden will never forget. The name may not stir any reaction, as she did not have the same impact that John Muir High School's (Pasadena, Calif.) Obea Moore, Arkansas' Seneca Lassiter or Central Pell's (Ontario, Canada) high-jumping Mark Boswell did on the faithful Franklin Field fans. However, the race she ran was second-to-none. Those in attendance will remember Gorden's race, but not for the reason that she or any of her teammates would hope. The High School Girls' Distance Medley Championships of America is a unique race. It provides high school coaches with the opportunity to put the best runners at four different events together in one race. The first leg of the race is 1,200 meters, while the second runner runs only once around the track, a distance of 400 meters. The third runner runs 800 meters while the anchor leg is a grueling 1,600 meters. Gorden, a senior at Carondelet High School in southern California, ran the anchor leg for her team. It was the only race she competed in at the Relays, and with her team earning a top qualifying time, they were considered one of the pre-race favorites. Sophomore Meghan Andrade did not get out to the lead that Carondelet coach Helen Lehman-Winters would have liked. The team was in last place when Andrade passed the baton to teammate Kerri Bock-Willmes. Willmes, a sprinter, had trouble catching the pack in only one lap, and left that responsibility to her teammates. For team co-captain Kelly Piatenesi, things only got worse. She ran the slowest 800 meters of anyone in the race, and by the time Gorden got the baton, she was more than 13 seconds off of the lead. "We got off to the worst start I've seen our team get out to," Lehman-Winters said. "I knew Kristen could run a sub-4:50 anchor leg, but it didn't seem that even that would be enough to catch up." Gorden seemed to ignore the pace set by the pack and came out sprinting. It would have been impossible for her to keep up the speed she started out at for the full 1,600 meters, but as she finished the first two laps, she had caught the pack and began to make her assault at the leaders with a steady speed. She moved from 11th place to second in the last two laps. The insurmountable lead that Columbia High School (N.J.) built up had vanished. "Kristen was running so fast that I thought she was going to collapse after the second lap," teammate Kelly Piatenesi said. "She was so determined to make up the time that we lost." It wasn't until the backstretch of the last lap that she challenged Columbia's Dara Crocker for the lead. "I could hear her coming up on me," Crocker said. "I could tell by the crowd that [Gorden] was right behind me, so I had to push that much more." As Crocker pushed, so did Gorden. The crowd rose to its feet as the two battled neck-and-neck down the home stretch. It appeared as though everyone had underestimated Gorden's ability to keep her early pace. With 15 meters to go, the race would have been too close to call. However, with only five meters left, Gorden ran out of gas, fell to the track, and dropped the baton. Crocker coasted to the victory. Gorden appeared stunned that her legs had given out, and crossed the finish line in fourth place without the baton, resulting in an automatic disqualification. Gorden ran the best unofficial split in high school history, with a 4:49.9. She ran 12 seconds faster than any other competitor over the 1,600 meters stretch, but it had not counted. Carondelet was disqualified, Gorden's time was never recorded, and the team would return home with nothing to show for its miraculous comeback. "The way we finished was so disappointing," said Lehman-Winters. "I feel so bad for Kristen because she wanted to win so badly. She really did run the greatest race I've ever seen." Even an hour after the race was over, Gorden sat crying in the paddock area. Her coach and teammates tried to console her, but she could not stop. In the back of her mind, Gorden knew she was only five meters short of completing the greatest race of her life and maybe even the Relays, but that wasn't why she was crying. She knew that even though her teammates raced poorly, she could have saved it for them. While Kristen Gorden may have fallen short of the finish line and the greatest comeback of the 103rd Penn Relays, she did not fall short of the crowd's her coach's, her teammates', or even her own expectations, because she could have given up, and she didn't.