January 27, 2025
Girls Track | Daily Chronicle
Girls Track

Track: Kwaza relishes experience at Olympic trials

By EDDIE CARIFIO
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University of Iowa senior Lake Kwaza competes in the women's 200-meter dash at the Division I Outdoor Track and Field Preliminary on Saturday, May 28 in Lawrence, Kansas. Kwaza ran 23.32-seconds. (Darren Miller/hawkeyesports.com) (Darren Miller)

Lake Kwaza was gunning for a personal best.

While she came up short of one of her goals of finishing the 200-meter dash in less than 23 seconds, she said she was still pleased with her first experience at the U.S Olympic Track and Field Trials Friday in Eugene, Oregon.

Kwaza, a Sycamore graduate who just finished her bachelor's degree at Iowa, finished sixth in her heat in 23.51 to finish in 26th place overall. The top three runners from each heat plus the next three fastest times earned a spot to the semifinals. The top three in the finals – Tori Bowie (22.25), Deejah Stevens (22.3) and Jenna Prandini (22.53) – earned spots on the Olympic roster.

Kwaza said the event had the feel of the NCAA National Championships, held last month in the same place.

"I guess it kind of felt a little like nationals, which we had there just a few weeks ago," Kwaza said. "It felt like another big meet. Of course, there were a lot of big names there."

One of those big names was Allyson Felix, the reigning Olympic gold medalist in the 200. Felix was in the same heat as Kwaza – in fact was in the next lane – and won the heat 22.93. Felix finished fourth in the final, .01 behind Prandini for the final qualifying spot in the event.

"It was intimidating at first," Kwaza said. "At the same time it was really cool. I got to say I got to run against a reigning Olympic champion. She was really nice. It felt like meeting another person at another meet. She's not as big as everybody makes her out to be."

Kwaza said she ended up moving up a couple spots from her seeding. She even finished .01 ahead of Ashley Henderson, who automatically qualified by taking third in the third heat.

"I knew a lot of the runners in my heat had put up 22s, and I wanted to go out there and start really fast to make them work," Kwaza said. "That's what I did. I feel like I was really able to accomplish what I wanted to do."

Now begins an uncertain time for Kwaza, at least athletically. She said she's heading back to Iowa in the fall to begin graduate school and to start an internship, but her eligibility is up. She said she's not sure if Friday was her last event.

None of that was on her mind Friday, she said.

"I just thought of it as another race," Kwaza said. "I didn't think about any of that. I just went in there and ran."