STARKVILLE – Record-setter. All-American. And now, World Champion.
Those are just a few of the many titles that former Mississippi State track and field star Marco Arop can go by. The talented 800m runner ran the race of his life last month, claiming a coveted gold medal at the World Athletics Championship in Budapest after clocking in at a time of 1:44.24.
Arop paced himself well, sticking with his competition early before pulling ahead for good in the final lap. The race was all but decided when the runners came down the stretch in a moment that Arop won’t ever forget.
“Before I got to the finish line, I had this little moment where I was thinking, ‘I’m about to win this race,'” Arop said. “Within that last 50 meters, I’m just trying to process what’s going to happen afterwards.”
The crowd cheered as Arop threw his hands up in an emotional display of what the career moment meant to him.
“I still don’t have the words to describe that moment crossing the line,” Arop said. “It was one of the best feelings.”
Among those in the stands was Mississippi State head track and field coach Chris Woods. Woods played an instrumental role in helping Arop grow into the athlete that he is, and the event was one of the biggest moments of their time together. However, as Arop explained, it took a bit of convincing to get his slightly superstitious coach to watch his race in person.
“[Woods] didn’t go to the stadium for the prelim and the semis, so I urged him to come to the final,” Arop said. “I just felt like something special was going to happen.”
When the magical moment did happen, Woods broke down in tears among the crowd. Arop had finally tackled one of his biggest goals, and the pair was there to share the moment together. Arop didn’t initially know that his coach had seen it all, but once he found that familiar face watching him, the emotions hit.
“On the victory lap, I saw him come down, and I was just so happy to see him in the middle of all the crowd,” Arop said.
It was a moment years in the making.
Before he had rows of medals and a long list of accolades, Arop was a young runner embracing one of the biggest changes of his life. There are a few thousand miles between Starkville and Arop’s hometown of Edmonton, Alberta – not to mention nearly one million fewer people. It was something that the then-freshman…
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