General
One Olympian’s Secret Weapon? His High School Coach.
All elite athletes make changes to their lives to keep their careers moving forward. For the American distance runner Grant Fisher, the key to success was in his past.
The broad strokes of Grant Fisher’s path to the Paris Olympics began to take shape last October at a coffee shop in Salt Lake City.
Fisher, the American record-holder in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, had hired Mike Scannell as his coach, and, in some ways, the situation was a refreshing change for a runner in search of one. Yet the partnership also felt familiar, and for good reason: Scannell had been Fisher’s high school coach.
Every Olympian has a personal story of his or her road to the Games. A price paid. A hurdle swept aside. A once-insurmountable gap closed by miles, or money, or suffering — just so the athlete can continue moving forward.
Fisher’s story is different: To find his way to Paris, he had to go back in time.
Fisher spent most of the afternoon in the coffee shop reconnecting with Scannell, listening as his former mentor laid out a vision for how Fisher could achieve his dream: to make it onto a medal podium at the Paris Olympics.
“Hours and hours of scribbling notes and mapping out a big plan,” Fisher, 27, recalled in a recent interview.
That plan came together on Friday night at the Stade de France in St.-Denis, where Fisher — blood streaming from wounds on his shin where his rivals had spiked him, and with his family cheering from the stands — won the bronze medal in the 10,000 meters.