After Bronze in Rio, Kristi Castlin Aiming For New Hurdle – Gun Violence

Kristi Castlin was just 12 years old when her father, Rodney Castlin, was gunned down by a man demanding money out of the coffers at the hotel where the Castlin family patriarch worked. No child is equipped to deal with the devastating effects of such a loss and Castlin, bright, talented, quick as she was even then, proved no exception.

A guiding hand was what Castlin needed most during that tumultuous time. And while her mother was there, providing the help and support only a mother can, the loss of her father was, for the youngest Castlin, too great a hurdle to overcome.

For a time.

From tragedy though, came hope. From hope, belief. And out of the pain and suffering of her father’s loss came Kristi Castlin, Olympic athlete, bronze medal-winner at the 2016 Summer Games in Rio in the 100-meter hurdle, and outspoken opponent of American gun violence.

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“Bronze actually feels like gold to me.”

Castlin says it with a laugh, a light sound that seems to speak to her outlook on life, something enduringly positive, hopeful and exuberant even when faced with what others, the more single-minded among us, may view as a let down, even a loss. It’s impressive, this shining sun personality, especially in light of the tragedy that befell her as a child, doubly so when you take into account the fact that Castlin was at Virginia Tech in 2007 when a deranged student shot and killed 32 people, injuring another 17 in the process.

Through it all, Castlin’s light has shone bright.

During qualifiers for Rio, the seven-time All-American blazed, setting a new personal best of 12.50. But just as her performance at Rio was good enough for that third place finish behind American teammates Nia Ali and Brianna Rollins, Castlin’s personal-best landed her only a second-place qualifying finish.

Castlin though, ever the competitor, smiling in the face of a challenge, remained undaunted. Instead of seeking retribution for her second-place trial finish – behind Rollins, of course, who finished in 12.38 with Ali clocking in at 12.55 – Castlin embraced her teammates, her competitors. Together the three American women sought gold, sought comfort and support in one another, on the track in Rio.

“I was just happy we were able to kind of band together and really form a team,” Castlin said of the camaraderie that she believes helped propel the triumvirate to gold, silver and bronze.

And that she and Ali and Rollins were able to sweep the podium for America – out of 62 sweeps in Olympic history, the first time that a sweep has come in a women’s event – just as they swept Olympic trials, wasn’t frustrating to Castlin, wasn’t even bittersweet.

“It made it just that much more special that, not only did I win the bronze, but I was a part of history.”

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That’s not to say that a third place Olympic finish is the end-all, be-all for Castlin.

“I know I definitely could have run better,” Castlin said of her effort in the finals, letting that protective shell of perma-positivity slip for just a moment, adding that her 12.50 in the trials proves that she’s capable of more.

And while that bronze medal may feel like gold now, Castlin’s already moved onto thinking about what’s next. About the World Championships in London next year, about the next Summer Games in Japan in 2020.

Having come to the sport late – only in track and field, as in gymnastics, would 14 be considered late – and having bloomed as a professional only after a handful of injuries and missteps – a disqualification at the 2011 U.S. Outdoor Track and Field Championships, an unfortunate situation at the 2012 IAAF World Championships that left her unable to finish – the 28-year-old Castlin is probably already closer to the end of her professional athletic career than the beginning. Whereas Rollins, 25, and to a lesser extent Ali, 27, have more time on the professional stage all-but-assured to them, Castlin’s Olympic life could well have peaked at Rio.

Castlin of course, does not see it that way. No matter that she’ll be 32 – not necessarily ancient by Olympic standards, but certainly no longer in the “spring chicken” designation – by the time the next Games roll around, Castlin is thinking big for her immediate and long-term athletic future.

“When you’re young, you don’t really know, you don’t really understand your event. You’re doing what your coach tells you to do, you don’t have a lot of body control – you’re just running.”

Castlin, as the eldest of the medaling trio, has reinvented herself as something of a technician. Pure speed and power won’t cut it like it did when she was driving down the track at Va. Tech – now it’s as much about her preparation, her training, her planning as it is skill. It’s something she hopes will allow her to mine more productive years out of a body that’s no longer the most naturally gifted on the track.

But competition isn’t all that’s coming for Castlin. In fact, she’s got her sights set much higher than another medal, maybe gold, in four years.

Devastating though the loss of her father was, it instilled certain hopes and desires that transcend even the fight for athletic glory. That helping hand, the lives lost to gun violence every day in America, in her native Atlanta – what Castlin wants most, maybe even more than further success on the track, is the opportunity to do good work, to help others, off of it.

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“When I’m in the blocks, I’m really just trying to clear my mind, just trying to focus.”

The lead-up to a race, the quiet moments at the starting line, stretching and breathing and smiling for the camera, can be nerve-wracking, pulse pounding, downright terrifying even for the most seasoned Olympic athletes. For Castlin, it’s an exercise in calm, in centering herself and focusing on the task at hand.

The medal-winning hurdler doesn’t really go in for the power of positive thinking or visualizing victory, even if she did spend the entirety of the year leading up to Rio seeing unexpected visions of herself smiling and waving from the podium.

But Castlin’s vision, the scope of her perspective, just as her reach, has expanded after her good-as-gold effort this summer. It’s with this newfound reach the unshakably positive Castlin believes she can be the change she hopes to see.

“At Rio, my whole goal was to focus, to go, do my job and bring the medal back home to my friends and family that I can touch, that I can help, that I can inspire.”

Much was made – with good reason – prior to and during the Games of the state of affairs in Rio, of the challenges facing a city so crime- and poverty-ridden, the governor was forced to declare a state of financial emergency ahead of the opening ceremonies.

But Castlin’s attention and her off-track efforts remain at home, in American communities. Communities like Atlanta, like St. Anthony, Minnesota, where Philando Castille was gunned down, like Ferguson, Missouri and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, like Dallas, Texas and so many, many more.

Castlin dedicated her Olympic effort to the victims of gun violence, turning the platform into, she hopes, an act of social change. And plans are already in the works for an organization called “Runaway Success” aimed at helping children in her community to gain access to the kind of guidance Castlin wishes she’d been afforded as a child.

Castlin hopes that more, more good works in the name of Kristi – and Rodney – Castlin, will be on the way soon.

“It’s a time for peace, where we need to come together, to hold one another up and really just figure out how to fix the issues that are threatening us right here at home.”

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Castlin doesn’t regret the choices she’s made in her life, the pitfalls she’s avoided, the pratfalls she hasn’t. But looking back, what she wishes for the hardest was that guiding hand, the steady presence that she believes would have helped her through the trials and tribulations of youth – trials and tribulations most of the privileged world takes for granted.

Buying a home, choosing a school, seeking a job – her father taken from her, faced with success unlike anything her family had ever before seen, Castlin struggled to write her own story with a clear, concise hand.

But that doesn’t mean it has to be so for others. And Castlin, even as she preps for the World Championships, for Japan in 2020, will be hard at work on her aim to ensure that needy children in her community are granted the same kind of guidance, the kind of access, she missed out on.

As for gun violence, Castlin understands the issue is a much more nuanced one.

Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter – Castlin falls squarely in the All Lives Matter arena. As someone who has suffered directly at the hands of gun violence, she’d like to see fewer guns on the street. But Castlin knows the solution to the ills ailing our country won’t be an easy one to discover, just as the emotion propping up the wall between the two sides of the gun control issue can be difficult to understand, and even if the impetus behind the hoped-for change, behind Castlin’s burgeoning off-track endeavors, isn’t.

“At the end of the day, we’re all human beings. It’s a life. A human life. You can’t value one over the other.”