Taylor Lovell crossed the finish line on June 13 in Eugene, Oregon, and became a national champion by 5.5 seconds.
The BYU runner won the steeplechase title at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, pulling away from the field in the final lap for one of the most decisive victories of the meet. According to Yahoo Sports, Lovell had finished ninth at that same championship in both 2024 and 2025.
The win did not come without a plan. Before the race, Lovell and her coach, Diljeet Taylor, mapped out exactly how the final lap should unfold.
"Before the race, coach (Diljeet Taylor) and I talked about what the plan was. We knew that I had a good close, but in order to use my close, I had to be there (in contention)," Lovell said. "That last lap, I was like, 'OK! OK! When do I go?' I was just waiting for that moment."
Notre Dame's Sophie Novak led for most of the race. Lovell tracked her and waited. When she made her move, she made it fast and deliberate.
"I knew I had to really drop the hammer," Lovell said. "I didn't want to slowly move to the front; I wanted to make sure that my move was very decisive and that I was going to give anyone who was with me a run for their money."
Once she took the lead, Lovell had no idea where Novak was behind her.
"I was just like, 'I've got to keep going. I've got to keep speeding up because she's an incredible athlete,'" she said.
Two obstacles stood between Lovell and the finish line: a water jump and a hurdle. Coach Taylor had warned her about exactly that moment before the race.
"You are not allowed to celebrate whatever happens until you are past those two because so many people get excited and then they forget there are those two last hurdles — which are brutal," Lovell said, recounting her coach's instructions.
She cleared both and finished without anyone catching her.
"I crossed the finish line and realized that I had done it," she said.
Lovell says the difference between ninth place twice and first place once came down to how she thought about competing. In previous years, she said the pressure of needing a top-eight finish to earn All-American status weighed on her throughout the race.
"I think the past few years I went into that last race and was like, 'OK, I have to be All-American, I have to be All-American' and it really took the fun out of it because it's like, 'Well, I have to do this' and then if you are not having fun with it, when the race gets hard, you have no reason to keep going."
She described this season as one spent finding joy in the process rather than fixating on outcomes.
"The journey has been such a long and incredible one," Lovell said on the Y's Guys livestream show this week. "I'm surrounded by the best people and by the best support system. It's just been a lot of gratitude these last few weeks."
