Right after the race, NBC helped facilitate a call to her relatives, who were watching in Wisconsin.

I mean, Olympics only happens once every four years, you might as well take your shot.” “Just trying to, like, stick my nose where it didn’t belong and just kind of get after it.

“I wanted to go and just be that person that when you’re racing and all these women were probably like, ‘Who the hell is this girl?’” she said. Her best was 2:25:13, and there were numerous runners with sub-2:20. She wasn’t selling herself short, just looking at times. To think, she was envisioning a top-10 finish, maybe top-five if things went right. Seidel finished strong - spurred on by a rare cheering crowd that lined the course - to secure that medal. It was down to four at one point with about four kilometers remaining when Lonah Salpeter suddenly stopped and walked to the side of the road (she would finish). Then, world champion Ruth Chepngetich dropped out on a hot day that led the race to be moved up an hour (Seidel found out night the night before at dinner and went straight to bed). “Being able to run with them, a lot of it is just staying calm, and not trying to think, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re running with the fastest women in the world.’ It’s just trying to be like, ‘OK, focus on your race, focus and what you need to do, and stay in it.’” Olympic marathon trials in February 2019 to earn a spot for Tokyo. “I was a little bit star-struck,” said Seidel, who finished second at the U.S. Seidel finished behind Kenyan marathoners Peres Jepchirchir and Brigid Kosgei on a sweltering Saturday run through the streets of Sapporo at the Tokyo Games. Recalling that moment, she laughed and said: “I was little bit off but still got the medal.

SAPPORO, Japan (AP) - Maybe the person most surprised by the bronze medal in the women’s Olympic marathon was the bronze medalist herself, Molly Seidel.Įven if a medal was something she did set as a goal all the way back in fourth grade.įor a class project, Seidel scribbled in black ink on the back of a decorated card: “I wish I will make it into the Olympics and win a gold medal.”

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