For most runners, the pre-race fear is getting stuck in the line for the port-a-potty and missing your start as you wait to take a last-minute wee. Well, for one runner at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials, the issue wasn’t getting stuck in line…it was getting stuck in the porta-potty.
Kendall Ellis found herself locked in a porta-potty just an hour before her 400-meter semifinal at the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Team Trials. After banging on the door and calling for help, she was freed just in time to compete.
Ellis didn’t just make it to the start line; she actually ended up winning her race, setting a personal best. The following day, she improved her time again, winning the final, a national championship, and a spot on the Olympic team.
“Crazy things happen right before something great is about to occur,” Ellis remarked. “Maybe I needed that to get all the nerves and adrenaline out.”
Ellis’ semifinal time of 49.81 seconds was her first personal best in six years, and she improved it by .35 seconds in the final. This breakthrough performance earns the 28-year-old, previously known primarily as a relay specialist, a chance to compete individually at the Olympics.
When asked about the sudden resurgence, Ellis credited self-belief. “The workouts haven’t changed, the results in practice haven’t changed, but finally something clicked up here that said, ‘You can do it. You can go out with the best of them, and you can finish better than anyone else.’”
Ellis is no stranger to dramatic finishes. In the 2018 NCAA championships, she made up 30 meters in the homestretch to lead Southern California to a victory in the 4×400 relay, a performance that went viral online.
Despite a notable career, including a gold medal in the 4×400 prelims and a bronze in the mixed 4×400 at the Tokyo Olympics, one memory that lingered was her narrow fourth-place finish at the 2020 Olympic Trials, just .07 seconds shy of making the individual team.
“I remember being so heartbroken,” she said. “I’d have rather gotten fifth place or sixth. But it was certainly a learning lesson, and coming into today, I told myself I did not want that feeling again.”
