By Rich Sands, @thatrichsands.bsky.social
(c) 2026 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
NEW YORK (22-Jul) — For the past two years, the 3000-meter steeplechase has been missing the woman who revolutionized the event in the United States. Emma Coburn, a world champion, Olympic medalist and 10-time national champion, has faced a series of setbacks that kept her from the steeple in 2024 and 2025.
Now 35 years old, she is in the midst of an inspiring comeback season that is trending in the right direction as she aims to add another title at this week’s USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships. The meet will be held at Icahn Stadium on New York City’s Randall’s Island between Thursday, July 23 and Sunday, July 26. The steeplechase heats are on Thursday and the final goes on Saturday.
Coburn’s bad luck started in April, 2024 when she broke her ankle on the water jump at a Diamond League race in China and saw her hopes of making a third Olympic team immediately dashed. She recovered from that injury, but as 2025 began she re-aggravated a persistent hamstring injury that had plagued her since 2023. “I tried to train for USAs last year, but it just kept getting worse and worse so I had to pull the plug on the season,” she said during a press availability at the New York Athletic Club in Manhattan today.
Coburn’s absence was notable given how consistent — and successful — she had been for the past 15 years. She won her first U.S. title in 2011 following her junior year at the University of Colorado. She would go on to win nine more, the most recent coming in 2022. She made the U.S. Olympic team in 2012, finishing eighth in London. Four years later in the Rio Games she ran a gutsy race to take the bronze medal. Her momentum continued in 2017 when Coburn was the surprise winner at the World Athletics Championships in London, leading a 1-2 USA finish with Courtney Frerichs.
And even as more and more American women were mastering the event, Coburn remained the standard. That is until the summer of 2023, when the hamstring problems began. She finished second at the U.S. championships and at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest she tore the hamstring and did not make it out of the heats. The broken ankle in 2024 followed by the return of hamstring issues last year did not dampen her enthusiasm, however, and after a long recovery process, she was finally ready to resume training for the steeplechase again this past January.
She started with a makeshift water jump in her Colorado gym, slowly increasing the barrier height. By March she was going over a real water jump, building confidence that she could re-master what has long been one of the strongest aspects of her races. “That’s the element that in the past I was always good at for most of my career, so I just wanted to be able to feel comfortable on that again,” she said. “I think all that prep really paid off and it’s feeling good. The steeple is a technical event and the hurdles have always flowed well, but the water barrier took a lot of prep, it took six months to really get that technique right.”
She opened her season at the L.A. Track Festival on May 23 with an encouraging third-place showing in 9:23.87 despite falling at the final water barrier. Her third race of the season, on July 4 at the Prefontaine Classic, proved that she was making progress. She finished ninth against a world-class field, lowering her season’s best to 9:15.97. (Coburn’s personal best of 9:02.35, set while taking the silver medal at the 2019 world championships, ranks her second all-time among Americans behind Frerichs’ U.S. record of 8:57.77.)
And while her hiatus has certainly been challenging, it also saw a major positive change in her life. In October 2024, Coburn and her husband/coach Joe Bosshard became parents via surrogate to a daughter, Betty. “Being a mom is the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” she said. “Growing up, when people asked what you wanted to do when you grew up or what you wanted to be, I wasn’t a kid with Olympic posters in my bedroom, I never said that I wanted to be an Olympian, my answer every time was, ‘I want to be a mom.’ So that was always my No. 1 goal in life.”
Coburn did not bring Betty along for this meet — allowing Coburn the rare luxury of sleeping on the flight to New York — where she will have her hands full with other youngsters. The field reflects the growing domestic depth in the event. Coburn’s 27-year-old training partner Gabbi Jennings set a personal best of 9:06.61 last year and has the fastest time by an American this season at 9:11.72. Other notable competitors include defending champion Lexy Halladay (9:08.68), Marisa Howard (9:07.14), Courtney Wayment (9:06.50), Gracie Hyde (9:16.61) and Angelina Ellis (9:20.30).
Coburn also picked up an excellent training partner, 2024 Olympian Parker Valby, who is also on the upswing after her own injury troubles. Valby will contest the 5000m here in New York.
Although most of Coburn’s rivals are in their mid-20s, she is undaunted. “It’s always inspiring to watch the next generation come up,” she said. “Their intensity and fearlessness keep you on your toes, make you have to dip back into that over and over again to try to stay competitive with them.”
It also helps that Coburn continues to love the sport. “There’s still joy and hope and a lightness around running that I still have now that I had when I was [younger],” she said.
In terms of a long-range plan, Coburn says that she is taking it one year at a time. “I’m trying to stay really present. Having a home Olympics [in Los Angeles in 2028] really is appealing,” she admits. “But I also have to listen to my body and see how I am faring in races and competing. Emotionally and mentally, I would love to keep going and try to compete for a spot on the next Olympic team, but I also have to respect my body and listen to the cues that it’s giving me.”
PHOTO: Emma Coburn (far right) competing at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)
ENDS
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