Phyllis Francis

thumb|Phyllis Francis in 2016 Phyllis Chanez Francis (born May 4, 1992) is an American track and field athlete. She won the gold medal at the 2017 World Championships in the 400 metres and 4 × 400 metres relay events. Quotes I went to (the University of) Oregon and it rains there all the time. This is nothing. I actually like this kind of weather, believe or not. It is amazing. I am so excited. It is such an amazing feeling. Being world champion sounds pretty cool. I just knew what I was capable of doing so I stuck to my race model. Allyson and Shaunae are amazing finishers, we are all that talented, but when I went down the home straight, I just believed in myself and stayed patient. I told myself, 'Don't freak out. Be patient and trust in yourself. I'm meant to be here. I'm strong enough. I've been training and putting in the work. You got this’. At the finish line I was surprised, I thought I was second or third but then they told me, 'You are first! It happened so fast. I told myself, ‘Top three. Whatever happens in the last 50 metres happens.’ I was focusing on my form and I didn't even know I won until one of my friends started screaming, 'You won!' and I was like, 'holy smokes!' I knew the medal was gold because they were jumping up and down and I thought, 'Oh, this must be really serious right now!' My coach (Vince Anderson) and a friend from high school came all the way out here. I saw them because they told me where they were sitting before I set my blocks up. When I looked over toward them, they were like, 'You did it! You did it!' They were jumping up and down. I didn't think I could actually win the race coming into it but I thought I could be top three, but I try not to put too much expectation on myself because I tend to overthink that. What I tend to do to myself is run other athletes' races so this time I decided to do my own race and it turned out really well. Francis provides some shock treatment over one lap of the track, October 05 2017 I told myself just go for it, It’s a little mind-blowing right now. … My coach said, ‘You might surprise yourself. It was a good race. I have no complaints, not until I go and talk to my coach, He’ll tell me all the problems I had. I was excited to be here. To get the win, I’m even more excited. Francis scores huge hometown upset at Millrose Games, February 19 2015 In late 2015 I made the big decision to leave my coach at the University of Oregon to switch to Vince Anderson out of Texas A&M. I felt like I needed a change. Vince was a very knowledgeable coach, so I packed my things and left. Moving to a new city and a new coach is never easy. I had to adjust. I had to figure out what to say and when was the right time to say it. Fortunately, coach Anderson is a phenomenal coach with excellent communication skills. I would tell him what I typically did during practice and rather than change everything, he made little tweaks here and there. It was only by mid-April (2016) I was doing all of his workouts. It was a smooth transition, although the biggest change was the technical work. I’d come from a strong endurance-type training at the University of Oregon and as a former middle-distance runner I wasn’t used to a sprint technique and my arm used to flop in front of me. Here I was, aged 22 at the time, trying to learn a sprint technique when most of my rivals already had an efficient sprint technique learned from a young age. My coach was very patient with me. I had not really done anything special during the indoor season and my form leading into the 2016 US Olympic Trials was not good, not bad, just okay. I went into the Trials focused on finishing in the top three, but in my semifinal I didn’t run how I was supposed to. I knew I needed to finish in the top four to qualify, but I was too relaxed. I was down in sixth place with 100 metres to go and I needed to put in a sprint to finish fourth and snag the last spot. My coach was pretty upset and reprimanded me after the race. I’m often in a state of high anxiety before most finals and never really sleep, but my coach put me at ease just before I went into the call room. He said, ‘I don’t mind if you run 53 or even 56 seconds, as long as you get out quickly’. His comment lifted a lot of the pressure from me. I was in lane two for the final, but I decided to run really hard for the first 100 metres and before I knew it – at 50 metres to go – I was right there with the field. As I crossed the line I could see a number of athletes in my peripheral vision and my first instinct was to think, ‘at least I am on the relay team’. Then when my name flashed up in second place behind Allyson Felix in a time of 49.96, I was so happy. I had not only made the US Olympic team for the 400m but also broken 50 seconds for the first time. It was such a satisfying feeling. It validated my decision to leave Oregon and train out of Texas. That moment when… Francis first broke the 50-second barrier, December 09 2017 External links Category:1992 births Category:Track and field athletes Category:Living people Category:Sportspeople from the United States Category:Women from the United States Category:Women in sports Category:Women born in the 1990s Category:African Americans