IAAF World Championships in Athletics Moscow 2013 - Results Photos Updates

Mary Cain's Chances in Moscow

Aug 5, 2013 by Jimmy Stevenson

Mary Cain under the tutelage of Coach Alberto Salazar is no longer an unfamiliar pair. Flashback to a cold New York night in late January and that duo would have just teamed up a few months ago. At that moment though, when Cain was attempting to break the American indoor high school mile record, Salazar was in Boston watching Galen Rupp, the other athlete that he began coaching while Rupp was in high school.

Rupp would fall short on his attempt to break the American Record in the indoor mile, Mary Cain though, well that's a different story.

The Bronxville junior shattered the 41-year-old high school and American Junior mile record with a third place finish of 4:32.78.

Absolute pandemonium broke out on 161st Street, well sort of. It wasn't quite like what happened on the streets of New York when the Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox in game seven of the American League Championship Series in 2003.

Nonetheless, the track world erupted! If everyone didn’t know Cain already from her 9:02.10 3,000m in Washington, her 4:32 mile put her in the spotlight for sure.

She then went on to break the indoor high school 2-mile record with her 9:38.68 and we all thought, “No way. This girl just keeps getting better. Maybe she has reached her limit for the year.”

Now that is laughable.

Two weeks later, Cain came back to the Armory and beat her own high school and American Junior mile record by over four seconds. WHAT!

She just kept on surprising us, but that had to be it. I don’t care who her coach is or how much she had been improving - winning a national title just seemed too farfetched, right? Wrong again.

In early March, Cain was awarded with a Senior National Title in the indoor mile. Stunned, yet again.

Of course, her spring season was also stellar. Another high school and American Junior record in the 1,500m (4:04.62) at the Oxy High Performance Meet was added to her list of accomplishments.

Don’t forget the first sub-2:00 800m by an American high school girl at the Pre Classic.

Race seen here.

By the time USA Championships rolled around, I was done, absolutely done with being surprised at what Mary Cain could do. Getting second place at USAs behind training partner Treniere Moser did not surprise me in the least bit.

So will I be surprised if Mary Cain medals at Worlds? At this point what she has done to the track fan is ridiculous. It’s been almost impossible to put limitations on her ability.

Don’t get me wrong the field she is against is absolutely incredible. After all, it is the World Championships.

Here are the six fastest women in the world and their respective personal bests this year.

Abeba Aregawi 3:56.60 Sweden

Faith Kipyegon 3:56.98 Kenya

Genzebe Dibaba 3:57.54 Ethiopia

Hellen Obiri 3:58.88 Kenya

Jenny Simpson 4:00.48 USA

Viola Kibiwot 4:00.76 Kenya

Am I saying Cain has a good shot for a medal? Not necessarily. But after what this fearless 17-year-old competitor has shown me, I have finally reached the point where nothing this rising star does will surprise me.

If Cain advances to the final and the final is another slow, tactical race as it was in Daegu when Jenny Simpson won gold, then Cain’s chances skyrocket.

We find ourselves back to the cold January night in the Armory when Cain broke the indoor national high school and American Junior mile record for the first time. After that race she said, “About 300 to go I realized, hey, I’m a kicker, this is what I do. I got to go!”

Well, Mary you got to go again. This time to Moscow, Russia for your first World Championships and certainly not your last.

Editor's Note: We think Cain's goal should be to make the final. Considering that one year ago, we were going bananas for her at the World Youth Championships, the fact that she has a chance to make the final on the senior level one year later is unreal.

We reiterate the points made earlier about our excitement for Cain. We were ecstatic after her mile in New York, but now if she runs 4:09 in London, we're a bit disappointed. She made some tactical errors and we think she's capable of more. That's the hard truth.

We've received some emails that we've "set the bar too high for a teenager" and such. We're not here to coddle, but we also understand that she's very, very young. If you showed us her resume and didn't include her age, we'd be impressed but jaws wouldn't drop. But because she is unique by the fact how well she has done at her young age, we have to take a step back and simply appreciate history.