OTC Elite’s Julia Lucas puts her trials behind her

After missing the Olympics by .04 of a second, OTC Elite’s Julia Lucas picks up the pieces

By Curtis Anderson

The Register-Guard

PUBLISHED: 12:00 A.M., MARCH 16

Last July, a few weeks before the track and field competition at the 2012 London Olympics was scheduled to begin, Julia Lucas was sitting in the front row at a youth cross country camp in North Carolina, waiting for her turn to speak.

Unbeknownst to her, the video of her heartbreaking fourth-place finish in the 5,000 meters at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials at Hayward Field was about to be shown as a means of introduction to the assembled campers.

“It was the first time I had seen that,” Lucas said. “It took me a minute to collect myself.”