Boris Berian, who was working at McDonald’s only two years ago, continued his improbable ascent in track and field by winning the men’s 800-meter crown on day three of the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Portland, Oregon.
He controlled the race from the gun, flying through the opening 200 meters in 23.92 seconds and building a 10-meter lead by the quarter-mile mark. Antoine Gakeme of Burundi narrowed that gap on the final lap, but Berian held him off, finishing in 1:45.83, to the delight of a sold-out crowd at the Oregon Convention Center.
“[With] about 150 to go, I definitely started tightening up,” Berian said. “The home crowd kept me going, got me gold.”
Gakeme finished second in 1:46.65 and American Erik Sowinski rallied on the final lap to earn the bronze, running 1:47.22.
“Man, it’s awesome,” Sowinski said. “I can't even put it into words.”
The origins of Berian’s feel-good story stretch back to 2014, when he decided to quit his job at McDonald’s to join the Big Bear Track Club in California. After winning his first national title at the USATF Indoor Championships last week, Berian completed the Cinderella story on Saturday.
“Really, I was just excited to be representing USA,” Berian said after his race. “The hard work I’ve been going through has definitely been paying off.”
Berian, who won $40,000 for his performance here on Saturday, still has not signed a contract with a shoe company. But he declined to speculate about his sponsorship future. “I’m letting [my agent] handle all that stuff,” he said. “I’ll just keep racing.”
In the women’s 1500-meter final, Brenda Martinez finished fifth in 4:09.57 behind three Ethiopian runners and Dutch athlete Sifan Hassan, who was born in Ethiopia and who won in a time of 4:04.96. Martinez positioned herself mid-pack early in the race, but after enduring a physical opening 1200 meters, the 28-year-old wasn’t able to keep pace over the final lap.
“These girls are tough to beat,” Martinez said. “They can kick whatever way they want. They can throw in surges in the middle of the race. That doesn’t shake them at all.
“I’m going to learn, I guess... That was a good lesson for me.”
Track and field has seen a recent wave of suspensions and investigations for performance-enhancing drugs, and Martinez said that was in the back of her mind at the end of Saturday’s race.
“It can happen any year that someone gets caught [for using performance-enhancing drugs] and then you get promoted,” Martinez said, “[so] I was trying not to let anyone pass me.”
Despite falling short of a medal, Martinez had cause for celebration: her teammate Berian.
Martinez, who co-founded the Big Bear Track Club in 2014 to help unsponsored athletes like Berian continue to train professionally, said she couldn’t stand to watch the race in person.
“I was in the bathroom when it happened. I didn’t want to see it at all,” she said. “I’m happy for him.”
In other day three action, Ashton Eaton won the heptathlon with 6,470 points, and Americans Ajee’ Wilson and Laura Roesler qualified for Sunday’s 800-meter final.
Race Results Weekly contributed to this report.
