Graham Blanks and Gabby Thomas Medal at 2025 USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships

Two Harvard alumni — Graham Blanks ’25 and Gabby Thomas ’19 — scooped bronze medals at the 2025 USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships this past weekend, securing themselevs a place representing the United States at World Championships.

The pair were joined in Eugene, Oregon’s Hayward Field by Sophia Gorriaran ’27, Victoria Bossong ’25, and Abbe Goldstein ’21.

Blanks, a two-time NCAA men’s cross country national champion, beat out opponents for a third place finish, earning his professional first national championship medal with a time of 29:03.66 in the men's 10,000 meters.

The race was close for nearly the entire duration, coming down to the final lap where three athletes — Blanks, Nico Young, and Grant Fisher — were neck and neck ahead of the pack. Blanks has seen himself in this situation before, often competing closely against the two.

Blanks fought until the very end of the race, though his opponents surged ahead in the final moments, leading to Blanks finishing within two seconds of the champion.

Following his podium finish on the first day of the meet, Blanks found himself at the starting line again on the last day, where he finished in thirteenth place in the men’s 5,000 meters, posting a time of 13:31.94.

The four-time All-American honored athlete previously matched World Championships standard for the race with a time of 12:59.89 at the Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener earlier this season. Blanks also represented Team USA at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, finishing in ninth place for the 5,000 meters.

Thomas, a five-time Olympic medalist, scored another third-place finish in the women’s 200 meters with a time of 22.20. Just last spring, Thomas scored gold medals in the 200 meters, 4x100 meters, and the 4x400-meter relay at the Paris Olympic games.

Thomas also qualified for the women’s 100 meters semifinal, though ended up relinquishing her spot in the race, citing an ongoing achilles injury. Thomas has been battling the injury for weeks and had to take time off of training ahead of the meet. The decision to pull out of the 100 meters paid off, as Thomas raced to her podium finish in the 200 meters after making the call not to continue in the 100 meters.

The race was unbelievably close — fourth-place competitor Brittany Brown trailed Thomas by a mere thousandth of a second, and fifth-place McKenzie Long followed Brown just a thousandth of a second later.

Gorriaran and Bossong both advanced to the women’s 800 meters semifinals this past weekend. Goldstein competed in the women’s 1500 meters.

Blanks and Thomas will compete in the World Athletics Championships in the men’s 10,000 meters and the women’s 200 meters, respectively. The biennial competition will take place mid-September in Tokyo.

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at shawn.boehmer@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.

—Staff writer Caroline G. Hennigan can be reached at caroline.hennigan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cghennigan.