Difference between revisions of "Courtney Wayment"

Latest revision as of 11:24, 7 August 2024

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Courtney Wayment Smith is a former elite collegiate runner. She was part of the Brigham Young University women’s team that placed second in the 2019 DI Women’s NCAA Cross Country Championship. She placed in the top ten, placing fifth in the women’s 6K race with a time of 20:16.1.

Earlier in the month during the NCAA Mountain Region Championships, All-American Wayment finished fourth in the 6K with a time of 20:03.5. The women’s team placed first at the competition; the first time since 2003.

Courtney ran for Davis High School and was nominated as Gatorade Player of the Year for the Utah Women’s Cross Country. As a child she played soccer and loved it so much, she played for ten years. In a junior high, P.E. class, she ran the mile in 5:48, a pace that would make her competitive with girls in high school. Her father—himself a collegiate All-American steeplechaser—said, “You’re in seventh grade; you didn’t run that fast.”[1] From there she began competing in cross-country and track races, but she also continued to focus on soccer. Her coaches told her she was not allowed to train for track races.

For 2 1/2 years, Wayment followed the coach’s order and didn’t participate in any training sessions for cross-country or track, but then she placed a disappointing 12th at the state cross-country meet the fall of her junior year. “That was when I realized that talent can only take you so far,” she says. Forced to choose sports, she reluctantly quit soccer entirely and transferred to Davis High, a track and cross-country powerhouse (her family sold their house and bought a new place within Davis boundaries to accommodate her running pursuits).[2]

Her senior year, she won the state cross-country championships and set a state record, running the first sub-17-minute three-mile race in the history of the event. She received a scholarship offer from BYU.

During the 2021 college indoor season she produced the fastest times in the nation in the mile and 3,000, and for the first time in her career qualified for the NCAA indoor championships, where she won the 3,000 and anchored BYU’s winning distance medley relay team.

In April 2021, she ran in the steeplechase for the first time in four years and broke the BYU school record by more than 11 seconds with a time of 9:31.37. It was the fastest time in the nation this year by six seconds and the fifth fastest time ever by a collegian.

She ran the anchor leg in the distance medley relay during the 2021 Indoor Track and Field Championships this spring helping her relay team win the event.

She concluded her collegiate career as a four-time NCAA Division I champion and an eight-time All-American. She also won the women’s steeplechase at the 2022 NCAA Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon. At the meet, she clocked a personal best time of 9:16, breaking her own school record, the collegiate record, and the meet record, while running the fifth-fastest steeplechase time in United States history.

Since then, Wayment has competed with two Team USA senior national teams, running at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, in 2022, and in Budapest, Hungary, in 2023.

Olympics

She ran the steeplechase at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in June 2021, narrowly missing a chance to represent the U.S. in the Olympic Games. The steeplechase includes hurdles and a water obstacle. At the outset of the week, Wayment’s best time was 9:31.37, which made her the fifth fastest collegian of all time. In the first round of the Olympic trials, she clocked 9:27.17, more than three seconds under her previous best. In the following Thursday finals she clocked 9:23.09, hacking another four seconds off her best time. That time made her the ninth fastest American in history.[3]

Wayment earned a spot on Team USA when she came in second in the finals of the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in Eugene, Oregon, on Thursday, June 27, 2024. The top three made the team. She finished with a time of 9:06.50, making her the fourth-fastest American ever, reported the Deseret News. Previously, her personal record was 9:09.91 from 2022.[4]

In her qualifying heat, Wayment ran with the pack in the front during the race, staying in the top five throughout the race as they sprinted to the finish line. She finished in fourth place with a time of 9:10.72 and advanced to the finals. She was 12th in the 3,000-meter steeplechase final on Tuesday, August 6, at the 2024 Paris Olympics with a time of 9:13.60.

Wayment was joined by other Latter-day Saint Olympic athletes and one Church leader in addressing young adults on the topic of “Sports and the Gospel” at a devotional in a Versailles meetinghouse on Sunday, July 28, with Elder Franck A. Poznanski, an Area Seventy, presiding. In part of her message she said:

“My relationship with God and my Savior has really helped not focus so much on outcomes, because at the end of the day, there’s so many things that can happen,” she said. “Regardless of accolades, success, anything like that, my relationship with God and my Savior has been so strengthened, and my worth is tied to Their love, and Their love is unconditional. . . . As long as I turn to Them, I know I will be in good hands.”[5]

She volunteers with her family’s nonprofit organizations “Anything for a Friend” and “F2TF.”