Vive la Brown! CHS alum heads to Paris Olympics
2013 Claremont High School graduate Brittany Brown at the June 29 2024 USA Track and Field Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, where she qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, which take place in Paris July 24 through August 11. Photo/by Taylor Sims
By Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com
When the starting gun sounded at the June 29 2024 USA Track and Field Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, nine of the country’s best female sprinters set off to join an elite club: the United States Olympic Team. The top three finishers in the 200 meter event would head to Paris for the Summer Olympic Games July 24 through August 11.
Among the extraordinary athletes was Brittany Brown, a 2013 Claremont High School graduate hoping to qualify for her first Olympic games, in lane 9. To her right, a roaring crowd of spectators. To her left, 2020 Olympic bronze medalist Gabrielle Thomas.
Brown more than rose to the occasion, finishing second with a personal best time of 21.90, just 0.09 seconds behind Thomas and a whisper in front of McKenzie Long, who finished third at 21.91.
Brown’s Olympic debut in the 200-meter preliminaries begins at 1:55 a.m. PST Sunday, August 4 on NBC Channel 4 and on the streaming platform Peacock. The medal final is set for 12:40 p.m. Tuesday, August 6. The 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games begin Wednesday, July 24 with men’s soccer and rugby team play. The opening ceremony takes place at 9 a.m. Friday, July 26.
2013 Claremont High School graduate Brittany Brown (middle) competing at the 2018 NCAA Championships. Photo/courtesy of University of Iowa Athletics
In the morning following her Olympic qualifying race, Brown took to X, formerly Twitter, posting that after never having won a state or NCAA title, nor even having gone to a “big track school,” she woke up an Olympian.
An alumna of the University of Iowa, Brown became the school’s 26th Olympian and the “first since Kineke Alexander, Troy Doris and Diane Nukuri-Johnson qualified for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,” according to hawkeyesports.com/news.
Brown is an eight-time All-American as a Hawkeye, a 2018 indoor and outdoor Big Ten Champion in the women’s 200-meter events, and school record holder in the women’s outdoor 100-meter dash, at 11.28, and 200-meter race, at 22.30. More info is at hawkeyesports.com/roster/brittany-brown. She competes in the 60, 100-, 200-, 300-, and 400-meters and the 4×100 and 4×400 relays. Results from previous races are at worldathletics.org, search “Brittany Brown.”
Brown placed third in the 100-meters with a time of 11.18 at the June 2 Bauhaus Galan meet in Stockholm, Sweden, part of the 2024 Wanda Diamond League season. She took silver in the 100-meter dash at the 2023 USATF Outdoor Championships with a personal record of 10.90, enough to send her to the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, where she finished seventh at 10.97. Brown also won the 200-meters at the 2022 NACAC Championships in the Bahamas at 22.35. In February 2019 Brown won the 300-meter short track race at the USA Indoor Track and Field Championships at 35.95. In October 2019 she finished second in the 200-meters at the world championships in Doha, Qatar, at 22.22.
At Claremont High Brown set the school’s girls 100- and 200-meter records at 11.49 and 23.68, respectively, at the 2013 CIF-Southern Section Division II finals at Cerritos College, and was the CIF-State runner up in both events. She also won the 17 and 18-year-old division 100-meter race at the 2013 USATF National Junior Olympics at 11.61.
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Even in high school, Brittany always sought out ways to improve. So proud to have been a tiny part of her success.