Between the three, there are Olympic gold medals, NCAA titles and numerous spots on the U.S. national teams. They span five years in age, but their stories share common threads. Alongside the success, there have been surgeries—on the knee and Achilles--- torn hamstrings, struggles with confidence and up-and-down results.  

On Friday night in Des Moines, Teahna Daniels, English Gardner and Morolake Akinosun sprinted across the finish line, separated by less than a tenth of a second to claim the top three spots in the women’s 100m at the USATF Outdoor Championships. 

The race wasn’t flashy. Daniels ran 11.20 into a persistent headwind that slowed times in the first two days of competition.

 It was a fitting result for an event that has been hard to pin down in the United States. Tori Bowie, the reigning world champion didn’t have to run in this race, and opted not to start. Aleia Hobbs and Sha’Carri Richardson, the last two NCAA champions placed sixth and eighth. 

Instead, it was a trio that even as recently as last month appeared unlikely to make the final, let alone the world championship team. 

“It’s what I love about track and field. It’s whoever is ready to run the fastest on that given day,” Akinosun said.

“It doesn’t matter what you did yesterday…..the day before….two months ago, it’s about what you can do today.”

What a win! Congratulations to @_teahnad on clinching the @MichelobULTRA Women’s 100m! #ToyotaUSATFoutdoors pic.twitter.com/6c378cysfp

— USATF (@usatf) July 27, 2019

At the beginning of June, Daniels looked far from a US Champion. She placed fourth in both the 100m and the 200m at the NCAA Championships on her home track in Austin. Richardson ran 10.75 to blow out the field in the 100m. The freshman from LSU, not the home town runner in her final college competition, was the story of the meet. 

This ability to rebound from disappointing performances is not new to Daniels. Her entire senior season at Texas was a reclamation project. After winning an NCAA title as a freshman, she admitted she got complacent. She only made one final her sophomore and junior seasons.  

But this year, with the help of a new coach (Edrick Floreal) and new diet (she’s lost 19 pounds since December) Daniels was again back at the top of the NCAA. When she ran personal bests of 10.99 and 22.51 at the NCAA Preliminary meet, the turnaround was complete.  Everything was lining up for a perfect finish at the NCAA Championships. 

“I got complacent again. I transitioned back into my freshman year,” Daniels said. 

“After I went 10.99 I went, ‘man I’m just going to come in here, it’s my home track, I’m going to win.’ I wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t focused.”

But after the disappointment of NCAAs, Daniels had a response. “I didn’t feel disappointed. I felt a drive. I’m showing it now,” Daniels said. 

Floreal is famously tough on his athletes. Making demands in their diet or habits to maximize their potential. Kori Carter, 2017 world champion in the 400m hurdles, eliminate bread from her diet when he told her she needed to improve her nutrition. Another athlete was told to limit their social media use because it was becoming too much of a distraction. What did he take from Daniels?

“What he took away from me was negativity and doubt in myself.”

She got a lane at the Prefontaine Classic at the end of June, her first post-collegiate race, and placed third against a deep field, beating Richardson and five other professional women. 

It built from there. The next week Daniels won the NACAC U-23 Championships. At the Monaco Diamond League she placed fourth in the 200m. 

Those results were enough to give her confidence that she could not just qualify for her first World Championships team, but win the race. And she posted just that to her friends on her private Instagram page. 

The race was dedicated to her late father, Wellice, who passed away after a brain seizure in January 2018.

After she crossed the line, Daniels found her mother, Linda. She was crying so Daniels started to cry. 

Some people wait a lifetime
For a moment like this ?#ToyotaUSATFOutdoors | @usatf pic.twitter.com/ECJZzCwX8Z

— Team USA (@TeamUSA) July 27, 2019

Four weeks ago at the Prefontaine Classic, in the same race where Daniels began her ascent, English Gardner texted her agent Daniel Escamilla with a clear message.

“I know it looks ugly right now, but just don’t give up on me. I know exactly what I need to do.”

Garder’s sixth-place finish at Prefontaine came on the heels of a poor showing at the Rome Diamond League at the beginning of June when she was last in a field of nine women in the 100m. 

A grade two hamstring tear in February had set her training back. It was the latest in a string of injuries—she’s torn her ACL twice and had three knee surgeries in all---another bump in what had been a turbulent last several years.

The hamstring tear came in her late 20s (Gardner turned 27 in April) and when she was three years away from her personal best in the 100m. She needed time and she didn’t have much—just four weeks until these championships. 

“I fight better when my back is against the wall. It’s just making the monster come out of me,” Gardner.

Helping build the monster back up was the job of her father and coach, Anthony. The two worked in Princeton, New Jersey, to rediscover the speed and mentality that took her to a 10.74 lifetime best and put her in an Olympic 100m final. 

As she settled into her blocks on Friday, a necklace with the phrase “No Matter What” dangled from her neck-- a phrase that has been tested as the injuries piled up.

She was the oldest runner in the field. A fact surprising to Gardner and to those who remember her not too long ago thrilling Hayward Field crowds during her time at Oregon and filling reporter’s notebooks with sensational quotes (in Des Moines, she offered this among other others: “My mom always says you can eat a whole elephant but you have to eat it one bite at a time”).  

The time, 11.25, was far from her fastest—again, the headwind—and she didn’t win the race. The significance was on getting on the team, again. 

Another defiant response to an injury. 

“I’m like Freddy and Jason in this sport. You can’t kill me,” Gardner said.

"I've battled nine months to be here."

Welcome back, #USATF ? medalist @UgHLyDuCkLiN #GoDucks | #ToyotaUSATFOutdoors pic.twitter.com/qdr016MR2g

— Oregon Track & Field (@OregonTF) July 27, 2019

18 months ago, Morolake Akinoson spent nights touching her surgically repaired Achilles tendon. She’d run her hand along her right leg to feel if the tendon was in fact connected. She’d also wonder if she’d make it back to elite running again. 

The past two seasons she finished fourth at the U.S. Championships in the 100m and gone on to win gold at the 2016 Olympic Games and 2017 World Championships as part of the U.S. 4x100m relay team. She was still young, but she knew the history of Achilles injuries.

“Sometimes I was confident that I would be back and better than I ever was before and then sometimes I’d be like, ‘but some people never come back from an Achilles. What if I can never come back? What if I rupture the other one?’”

The Achilles went during an indoor meet in January of 2018 in Lubbock, Texas. Akinosun had been dealing with nagging tendonitis and her body finally had enough. When the rupture happened after her 60m race, she remembers relief more than pain, like a pressure release. 

Her season was lost. As the questions swirled about her recovery at night, she tried to fill her days. She volunteered as an assistant coach at the University of Texas. She read. She traveled to Europe and spent time in cities where she’d raced before, but only seen the track and the hotel. 

She enjoyed all of it, but she also came to a conclusion.

“I’m not done with track and field yet.”

After months of rehab, she returned to the track in late March at the Texas Relays. She ran the 100m in 11.32, her first with a visible scar on that right leg. It was far from her best time, but it was progress. She remembered that a year prior, March of 2018, was when she took off her walking boot for the first time and stumbled when she tried to walk on the Texas track. 

Before the US Champs, she raced frequently. None of the results were spectacular, but they were steps forward. The focus remained on qualifying for the World Championships in the 100m. 

That’s something she’d never done on a healthy Achilles. Now, she’d have to do it a year-and-a-half after surgery.

Akinosun entered this meet tied for the 20th best time in the United States of 2019. Still, there was unrelenting belief. In Thursday’s prelim, she won her heat. In the semifinals, she finished a close second to Daniels. 

“When I woke up this morning I knew that I was going to be on this team,” Akinosun said. 

What was already apparent to Akinosun was becoming increasingly clear to everyone else. She could finish in the top three. 

In the final, she was in lane five between Gardner and Daniels. At the midway point, all three were trying to chase down Dezerea Bryant, who jumped out to a great start. In the final meters, Akinosun squeaked past Bryant to finish third by .01 seconds. 

After the finish, there was happiness from Akinosun but no disbelief. 

“It was like getting to the end of the sentence and seeing a period,” Akinosun said.  “It’s supposed to be there.”