Go Fawn! Fawn Dorr, by Amanda Rose & Brianna Benjamin, note by Larry Eder

Fawn Dorr, 2012 US Open, photo by Breeon Photos

I hear everyday, that if we want to attract another generation to our sport, we need to understand what teenagers and young adults see or do not see in our sport. So, a few weeks ago, with the support their father, Jeff Benjamin, a long term correspondent for our publications, RBR gave Amanda Rose and Brianna Benjamin an assignment: interview Fawn Dorr and also, for Brianna, to give us her photographic interpretation of the meet.
Fawn Dorr, a Brooks sponsored athlete, is a keen social media conversationalist. She reaches out to young athletes that way (like Tyson Gay and LoLo Jones)and has developed quite a following.

Amanda Rose and Brianna Benjamin give us their view of Fawn Dorr, one of the new and rising stars in our sport. I think that you will enjoy their vision of our sport:

Fawn Dorr–By Amanda Rose and Brianna Benjamin

At the US Open Meet in Madison Square Garden, the big fans and
followers of our sport were very familiar with the top athletes who
competed at the meet. Athletes like Bernard Lagat, Christian Cantwell,
Veronica Campbell-Brown, Asafa Powell, Jessie Williams, and Lolo Jones,
among others, were easily recognized and cheered by the crowd, whether
they won or lost.

2012 U.S. Open, photo by Breeon Photos

But, at the beginning of the Womens’ 500 meters,
there was a Brooks-sponsored athlete whose appearance, and performance
was noticed by many, including by us!

When the gun went off, Fawn Dorr,
grunting at the start, immediately took the lead. With her wavy hair
with symbols cut into the side (she says on twitter it was done by a
Lady Gaga video hair stylist), along with very cool earrings which are
designed as lightning bolts, she attempted to steal the race (and the
crowd’s attention) from the beginning.

Although she finished second in
the last turn on the track to Keshia Baker, we, along with the fans in
the garden crowd, were abuzz with the look and style of this athlete.

At the postrace area, we got to meet Fawn and talk with her a
little bit. While disappointed in her race(She did run 1:04.35 to
Baker’s winning time of 1:03.74), she did mention how this was only the
beginning of a long season, which will hopefully put her on the U.S.
Olympic team.

A high school cross-country and track runner from the
upstate New York town of Akron, she medaled at the Empire State
Games. Also in high school, Dorr won the 2006 NY State title in the 400m hurdles in 60.60 seconds. After
a year at SUNY Cortland, where she was the DIII National Champion at
400m hurdles, she transferred to Penn State. At Penn State, she
emphasized to us that she was a 12 time NCAA Champion. She is currently
training up in Buffalo.

When we looked up her background information, we saw that Fawn
probably has big decisions to make. She seems to be very competitive at
different events with a PR of a 52.51 400 meters, and 55.57 for the 400
Hurdles. She also ran Cross-Country and also did the Women’s
Steeplechase!

But she did run faster than she ever did at 500 meters in
the Garden, so you never know what is going to happen!! Her attitude was
summed up in this twitter message she tweeted just before her race–

“This race, this is 4 everyone who was ever told u can’t amount 2 nuthin. That ur tiny dreams r stupid. This is 4 u, n me”

GO FAWN!!!!–From Amanda Rose and Brianna

Author

Larry Eder
Larry Eder has had a 52-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself." Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys. Theme song: Greg Allman, " I'm no Angel."
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