The most eye-catching performance from the final weekend of the U. S. Olympic Track and Field Trials didn't break a world record or send a teenager to Tokyo. But Lindsay Flach still became the shining star. Lindsay Flach competed in the heptathlon(七项全能) 18 weeks pregnant and showed off a growing belly. Though she finished a distant last among the 15 women who made it through all seven events of the heptathlon, her participation this past weekend was a victory in itself.
The 2020 season was supposed to be Flach's last chance to compete in the heptathlon, the sport that developed into her enthusiasm over the past decade. She intended to grasp a chance on the U. S. Olympic team one final time before marrying her longtime boyfriend and starting a family together.
In early 2020, Flach quit her job, temporarily left her soon-to-be-husband behind and moved nearly 250 miles south to train with her new coach at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She intended to remain there through the 2020 U. S. Olympic Trials. Then the pandemic(疫情)struck three months into her training.
When the spread of COVID-19 forced the postponement(延迟)of the Tokyo Games and cast doubt on whether they would ever happen, Flach, 31, decided she could no longer put her life on hold. In March, Flach began struggling to hit marks that had previously been routine to her. She took a pregnancy test that came back positive, a result that made her doubt whether her Olympic hopeful.
The pregnancy weakened Flach's strength and energy but not her desire to say goodbye to track and field on her own terms. While Flach's final score was less than half her personal best, she's trying not to focus on that aspect, nor on the fact that she never qualified for an Olympics in her career. She's excited for what's to come in her life, excited she was able to participate in a third Olympic Trials and excited that she showed how strong would-be mothers can be.
