Northern Arizona University Athletics issued the following announcement on July 30.
With the 2020 Olympics already underway, track and field events are just beginning in Tokyo, Japan and three former Northern Arizona athletes, Brooke Andersen (United States), Luis Grijalva (Guatemala), and two-time Olympian David McNeill (Australia) are prepared to proudly compete for their countries at this year's games.
Event coverage will be spread across several of the NBC channels including Peacock, USA, NBCSN, NBCOlympics.com, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app.
Andersen will be the first of the trio to compete, as the preliminary round for the women's hammer throw is scheduled to begin the July 31 at 5:10 p.m. MST, while the finals will be held Aug. 3 at 4:35 a.m. MST.
In 2018, Andersen was named the NAU Scholar-Athlete of the year, placed second in the women's hammer throw at the 2018 NCAA Championships, and graduated from NAU. Not long after, she was able to channel her upward momentum into a successful professional career, finishing third at both the 2018 and 2019 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, and earning silver at the 2019 Pan American Games.
At the U.S. Olympic Trials this year, Andersen secured a silver medal with a personal best throw of 77.72 meters and punched her ticket to Tokyo as a member of the United States of America Olympic team for the very first time.
Just as the women's hammer throw will be coming to a close, Grijalva and McNeill will take to the track for the men's 5000-meter preliminaries on Aug. 3 at 4:00 a.m. MST, and then presumably again on Aug. 6 at 5:00 a.m. MST for the 5000-meter finals.
Grijalva graduated from NAU this year, leaving a legacy of national individual and team championships behind. Immediately following graduation, Grijalva signed a professional contract with HOKA One One, and most recently experienced a massive legal victory in the courtroom.
Running a time of 13:13.14 at last month's NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships Grijalva placed second in the men's 5000-meter run, and qualified to represent his home country of Guatemala at the Tokyo Olympics.
However, as a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Grijalva was met with an abundance of red tape, as him and his lawyer, Jessica Smith Bobadilla, petitioned for weeks in hopes of obtaining advance parole in order for Grijalva to safely travel abroad, for without approval from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Office Grijalva would not be permitted to re-enter the United States.
After weeks of endless efforts, Grijalva and Bobadilla found success, as Grijalva was officially granted permission to embark on his Olympic journey. As one of the fastest distance runners in the history of Guatemala, he will be the first Guatemalan athlete to compete in an Olympic track event since 2000.
McNeill, the 2010 NAU graduate, will compete alongside Grijalva in the men's 5000-meter. As a Lumberjack, McNeill was a nine-time All-American, two-time ESPN NCAA All-Academic first team student-athlete, and was named the Division I Scholar Athlete of the Year in 2009.
Shortly following his return to Australia, the decorated collegiate athlete began preparing for the 2012 London Olympics, in which he competed in the 5K, finishing 28th overall in the preliminary stage. Nevertheless, McNeill qualified for the Rio Olympics, four years later in the men's 10000-meter and ultimately finished 16th.
Since then, McNeill has become the 2016 men's 10K Australian National Champion, and the 2017 5K men's Australian National Champion; this year McNeill ran a personal best 5K time of 13:12.82 in Perth, sealing his delegation as a three-time Australian Olympian.
NAU is extremely proud of these three exceptional athletes, and we take great pride in knowing that each of them share roots to our institution.
Original source can be found here.
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