Grant Fisher — Medals Proved The Concept

IT’S AN AMERICAN tradition for towns lucky enough to boast an Olympic medalist: the speeches, the proclamations, the parade, the christening of the track, the endless autographs. Such was the welcome that Grand Blanc, Michigan, rolled out in September for favorite son Grant Fisher, the Olympic bronze medalist in both the 5000 and 10,000.

“This community and this track have left its mark on me,” Fisher told a standing-room only crowd. “And I hope that I’ve made my mark on it.”

Fisher’s route to becoming a hometown hero would not have happened without his making a very bold decision. A year ago, he found himself frustrated. At both the Olympics and the Worlds, he had made global finals in the 5000 and 10,000, but he placed no higher than his 4th in Eugene, when he missed the podium by just 0.17 seconds. Then, in the ’23 season, he missed making the U.S. team in the 10,000 by less than a second and withdrew from the 5000, hurt. After all the sacrifices, all the miles of training, it was hardly the payoff he had dreamt of.

The American Record holder in both events decided to leave the Nike Bowerman TC and forge his own future, returning to his roots.

Mike Scannell got the call while on the golf course. A longtime family friend, he had run with Fisher’s father, Dan, at Arizona State, and had coached the younger Fisher during a prep career that saw him win two Foot Locker national XC titles and in ’15 become the seventh U.S. high schooler to break 4:00.

Now Fisher was asking to work with him again. “The first thing I said was, ‘When?’” says Scannell. “I didn’t hesitate.”

“When I sat down with Mike,” recounts Fisher, “there was one goal for the whole season: it was the podium in Paris. And there were a lot of smaller goals along the way. One was the indoor season and trying to get an American Record, to really test to see if our new system had been working.”

The training plan was a departure from what Fisher had been doing with previous coach Jerry Schumacher. “Mike had never trained someone at my caliber before and I wanted to tweak a few things in training, so it was unproven.

“So the winter season was proof of concept [though he missed former training mate Woody Kincaid’s indoor 5000 AR by just 0.23 with his 12:51.84]. Then the next goal was to make the team…