In less than two weeks, the Paralympic Games begin in Paris. Three Spokane track and field athletes will begin their quest for medals, including a wheelchair racer who recently graduated from a Spokane Valley high school.
Lauren Fields will compete in two events in Paris, 100 meters and 800 meters.
“Those are the two sprints that are available to my classification, so it’s what I do," she said.
Many meets feature races at 200 and 400 meters. Not this one.
"We have to get our class a little bit bigger before they add those back. My favorite is the 400," Fields said. "But between the 100 and the 800, I'd say I'm better at the 100, but the 800 catches my fancy a little bit more.”
Fields is 18, a recent graduate of Valley Christian School. When she was 9, she and her family moved to Spokane from Portland. Since then she’s been associated with her sponsoring organization, ParaSport Spokane.
In 2021, Fields had dreams of going to the Tokyo Paralympic Games. To qualify, she competed in the U.S. national team trials.
“Going into the Tokyo trials, I was just happy to be there. I had no expectations, it was just fun. But I think seeing how other people reacted to that, I kind of knew what to expect," she said.
She didn’t make the team that year, but she started a trend. She has competed at the national championship meets every year since. Last month, she attended the Paralympic trials in Florida feeling she had a chance to go to Paris.
“I had expectations, but I knew that in order to make the team, I would have to PR (personal record) in a pretty big fashion, and I did," Fields said.
She smashed her personal best in the 100 meters by nearly a second and U.S. Paralympic officials picked her for the team.
On Tuesday, she and her Spokane teammates, sprinters Lindi Marcusen and Taylor Swanson, will board a plane to go to the biggest meet of their lives.
“I’m super fortunate to have all these teammates and people that I train with all the time who are kind of able to keep the environment super serious. We know what we need to do, and we're all supporting each other in that, but we also know that you need to have fun so that you don't panic," she said.
Once she gets there, she’ll have a few days to acclimate because her events are later in the meet schedule. She says she has begun to think about what the experience will be like.
“That track is purple, which is like my big visualizing factor because, that sounds super weird, but purple is like my favorite color on planet Earth. So the moment I found out the track was purple, I started visualizing myself racing on a purple track and getting that PR," Fields said.
Maybe that will be enough to earn her a spot on the medals platform.
“Honestly, I just want to push my best and see what happens. I mean, do I know where my name falls on the spreadsheet of what should happen? Yes. But am I going to let that determine how I actually do? Absolutely not," she said.
After the Paralympic Games, Fields plans to enroll at the University of Illinois, one of the nation’s leading programs for Para athletes, and continue her career.
On Sunday, you can meet Lauren Fields and her Spokane teammates at a Paralympics send-off party at the Van Gogh Immersive Experience downtown. They’ll be there between 5 and 7.
