EDMONTON, Alberta, Canada – Stanford’s Olivia Baker blew open the women’s 4x400-meter relay at the Pan Am Junior Track and Field Championships Sunday, leading the United States to the gold medal.
Baker, on the second leg, ran a 52.6 split to break open a close race. After that, the only question seemed to be how big a margin the Americans would win by. The team of Zola Golden, Baker, Kendall Ellis, and NCAA outdoor 800 champion Raevyn Rogers finished in 3:31.49 – the fastest time by a junior team (19 and under) in the world this year.
The U.S. beat runner-up Jamaica to win by more than seven seconds. It was the seventh consecutive U.S. victory in that event in a biennial meet that decides the junior champion of the Americas.
Baker completed a freshman season in which she earned three All-America honors – a first-team honor for her leg on the Cardinal’s NCAA indoor runner-up distance medley relay, and second-team honors outdoors in the 800 and 4x400.
The U.S. captured a record 30 gold medals in the three-day competition, and all four Stanford athletes who competed earned a medal -- combining for two golds, one silver, and one bronze.
Besides Baker, a gold medal went to Harrison Williams, who broke meet and American junior records while winning the decathlon with 8,037 points. Lena Giger was second in the women's hammer throw with a Stanford freshman-record 190-3, and Daniel Brady helped Canada to bronze in the men's 4x400 relay. Brady ran a 48.2 split while leading off a Canadian team that placed third in 3:09.91.
Brady's race ended the 2015 track and field season for Stanford. It began on Jan. 17 when Baker made her collegiate debut at the UW Indoor Preview in Seattle and won the 600 wire to wire in a school record 1:29.42.
Nearly eight months later, the book finally closes on the season. Of course, the Cardinal’s first cross country race is only six weeks away.
Pan Am Junior Championships
Results of events with Stanford competitors
Men
4x400 relay – 1, United States 3:07.07; 3, Canada (Daniel Brady, Stanford, first leg) 3:09.91.
Women
4x400 relay – 1, United States (Olivia Baker, Stanford, second leg) 3:31.49.
