NASHVILLE, Tenn. — There is an old sports adage that champions are made in the offseason. For someone inclined toward science and computing, perhaps it was just the left side of her brain ruling the day. But Lily Kriegel took that literally this past summer.
In June, Kriegel beat all challengers to win the national championship in the 5,000 meters at the USATF U20 Outdoor Championships, the elite domestic track and field competition at the under-20 age level that over the years helped propel the likes of Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Sanya Richards-Ross on their record-setting ways. Kriegel also brought home a bronze medal in the 1,500 meters in this year’s event at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.
Kriegel’s win didn’t come out of nowhere, although some might argue you could have seen nowhere from where she stood on the starting line. Rather than the culmination of a glorious freshman year, her championship stood in stark contrast to an often frustrating injury-marred first year of collegiate cross country and track and field. Even her highlights had a hint of bittersweet. She hit her stride in the SEC Outdoor Track and Field Championships—only to miss the 1,500 meter final by one position and .25 seconds.
And yet Kriegel’s first season at Vanderbilt was an unqualified success long before she finished first in Eugene. Standing on the podium was indeed the exclamation point on a year likely to shape many more to come. In her first year as a Commodore, she explored an interest in neuroscience and helped organize BrainHack 2025, a Vanderbilt-sponsored event “where data science flirts with neuroscience, all in the name of unlocking the secrets of the brain.” The same desire to find out how fast she can go fueled her to find out why the world around her is as it is. She hit pause for a few months on the track, but she never stopped moving forward.
At the finish line in Eugene, she could see just how far she had come. And how quickly.
“It showed me that maybe progress isn’t always linear,” Kriegel said of the national championship. “You just have to stay dedicated to getting better. To be honest, in high school, there were a lot of times I wasn’t sure if I wanted to run in college. It can be a tough sport, just the nature of it. Winning just showed that if you can stick it out and trust yourself and all the work you’ve been doing, it can lead to something in the end.”
Kriegel’s U20 title might have been a…