Geena (Gail) Levoe cried at her first track and field meet.
She was only 6 years old running the 50-meter
dash at a small summer event held at Grand Blanc High School.
Having never been to a meet, she was
freaked out by the sound of the starter’s pistol.
“I don’t remember it myself, but my parents
took video of it,” she said. “I cried, apparently, after the gun shot, because
it was so loud; it was frightening to me. I ran
really fast, but afterward I was crying and scared, because I didn’t expect
that.”
Levoe would eventually have much cooler
stories to tell about her career on the track.
Like how she won back-to-back state
championships in the 800 meters in 2004 and 2005.
Like how she won two NCAA championships
in the 800 and made All-America 10 times at the University of Michigan.
Like how the sport enabled her to travel
the world after college, competing in national and international championship
meets.
Like how one of those trips was to London
in 2012 as a member of the U.S. Olympic team.
Those are just the highlights of a resume
that includes numerous other record-setting performances, podium finishes and all-conference honors.
At the age of 32, she is one of the
youngest athletes inducted into the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame as a
member of its 40th class.
And she might not be done competing.
She lives in Colorado, which gives her the
opportunity to train at altitude if she gets back into track and field. Levoe
has taken up trail running, winning one race and
placing third in another.
“I just want to see if I still want to
compete and if I’m still passionate about track and field,” she said. “I’ve
accomplished so much. It’s not even about that anymore.
It’s about where I am, where I started with track and field and what made me
fall in love with it in my early years and going back to
that to compete for myself and because I love it and because it’s fun.”
Levoe hasn’t raced on the track since the
2016 U.S. Olympic Trials. In her bid to make a second straight Olympic team,
she rolled her ankle while warming up and
didn’t make it out of prelims.
Four years earlier, it all came together in
the U.S. Olympic Trials at venerable Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. She needed a strong kick in the 800 final to move into
the top three and stamp her ticket to London. She placed second in 1:59.24
after taking seventh in the Trials four years earlier.
She immediately began searching for her
family in the stands.
“It’s just like relief and just so many
years of training and ups and downs in your career and this dream you have in
your head,” she said. “A lot of people are supporting
you, but a lot of people are doubting you at the same time. Lots of things go
through your head. Just pure joy and bliss. Just
everything you’ve worked for in your whole life led to that moment and all
those emotions just come out. They just emotionally get
released. It’s the greatest feeling ever. That was the runner’s high I felt,
for sure.”
Her hopes of reaching the finals in the
Olympics were derailed when she injured her calf while competing in a Diamond
League meet in Manchester, England, two weeks
before the London Games.
With her calf taped, she made it through
the first round in 2:03.85 before finishing last in the semifinals in 2:05.76.
“If I was never injured, I know I would’ve
qualified for the final and done amazing,” she said. “I was on pace to run
under 1:59, for sure, which was my (personal record).
It was just really unfortunate and bittersweet it happened. But, honestly, I
was able to race twice in the Olympics and be a
semifinalist. To me, I persevered through that injury and all of those frantic
negative thoughts that go through your head.”
Her results aside, it was an incredible
Olympic experience.
“It was surreal, for sure,” she said. “You
have an idea of what an Olympic Village and Olympic Games and everything will
be in your head when you see it on TV, but
it’s so much more than that once you get there. It blew my expectations out of
the water, just being present in the Olympic stadium
for the opening ceremony. Getting to do that was like I was in a movie.
“The feeling of pride was such an amazing
experience. I really tried to take it all in when I was there. I was lucky I
didn’t compete until the end of the Olympics. I
got to watch other events and cheer for Team USA at each of them and explore
London a little bit more.”
At Grand Blanc, Levoe first made a name for
herself as a basketball player. She was the starting point guard as a freshman, sophomore and junior before switching to
cross country her senior year in preparation for college running.
An injury kept her from running track and
field as a freshman. She came into high school as a 100- and 200-meter
sprinter, but Grand Blanc coach Carlos Benton saw
potential in her as a metric half-miler.
“I looked at him like, ‘You’re crazy;
there’s no way,'” she said. “I never ran the 800, never ran distance. Like
everyone who starts running, I was going to be a
100-meter sprinter. He obviously saw something in me that made him know that is
what she’s meant to do.”
Levoe still holds the state record for the
800, a 2:05.05 set in the Nike Outdoor Nationals on June 18, 2005 in
Greensboro, N.C. She even had success bumping up to the
1,600, setting the Flint-area record of 4:45.7 in the 2005 Holly regional, a
record that still stands.
