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At the Olympic Track and Field Trials in July, Deena Drossin won the 10,000-meter event in 31 minutes, 51.05 seconds, a personal-best time that broke the Olympic Trials record by .22 seconds. "I didn't have any anxiety at all (in the race)," she says. "I just kept thinking of having an ice-cream cone afterwards." Later in the trials, she ran in the 5,000-meter final, dueling with Regina Jacobs for most of the race before Jacobs pulled away and smashed her own American record. "I owe my American record to the lady sitting right next to me," said Jacobs, referring to the hard pace Drossin set for the first 4,000 meters. Drossin had chosen to run the longer of the two distances in Sydney because her training had been designed to prepare her for the 10,000. Lynn Jennings, who took bronze in 1992, is the only American woman to have won an Olympic medal in the event.
Drossin grew up in suburban Los Angeles and started running competitively at age 11. She had been a soccer player and a figure skater, but her mother made her join the local track club so she would meet other children in her grade. She won her first race and went on to earn five state titles while attending Agoura Hills (Calif.) High School. Drossin then matriculated at the University of Arkansas, where she failed to improve because of injuries and burnout. Upon graduation, however, she decided to return to running. She called former U.S. Olympic coach Joe Vigil and decided to move to Alamosa, Colorado, to be coached by him. She has improved dramatically since the move, winning four national cross-country titles. On the track, she placed third in the 10,000 at the 1999 U.S. Nationals and was the top American finisher - 11th - in that event at that year's World Championships.
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