American runner qualifies for 2020 Olympics in first-ever marathon

Molly Seidel had been a star college athlete before suffering from injury, depression and an eating disorder

Molly Seidel reacts after finishing second at the US Olympic trials (Getty)

American runner Molly Seidel completed a stirring comeback on Saturday as she qualified for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in her first-ever sanctioned marathon event.

The 25-year-old was once a college standout, winning four national titles at Notre Dame before her blossoming career was sidelined by a sacral stress fracture, depression and an eating disorder.

Ahead of the Olympic trials in Atlanta, Seidel had been working as a barista and babysitter in Boston but stormed to a second-place finish in the national qualifier with a time of two hours 27 minutes and 31 seconds.

“I can’t put into words the happiness, gratitude, and sheer shock I’m feeling right now but I’ll try...” Siedel wrote on Instagram after the race. “Thank you to all the amazing women competing yesterday. It was an honour to race in the deepest field in marathon OTs history; many of these women are the heroes I grew up cheering for, and I’m continually inspired by the greatness of the women I’m surrounded by.

“Thank you to my family and friends for coming to Atlanta to support me, and for supporting me in all the other less-glamorous moments. These are the people that drove me to XC meets, made me PBJs, picked me up when I fell, and now get to share this incredible joy with me.

“Thank you to my coach & friend Jon Green. Thank you for helping me get to the line healthy and fit, and for being just as dumb as I am to think I could go out and compete in the marathon Olympic trials.”

In an interview with Runners World prior to the race, Seidel admitted she had suffered from depression and an eating disorder during her time at college, leading to her entering an intensive recovery programme and two years of therapy.

“With OCD, you just have this anxiety all the time and feel like you can’t control anything, so you develop patterns and behaviours,” she said. ”I would compulsively knock on things in specific patterns because you feel like you have some control over the universe. Over time with running, it developed into turning my eating or my running into a control mechanism.”

“When you get to college, it’s almost like this echo chamber where you see other women excelling in the sport with very low body weight. I think the collegiate structure of running is great, but in a lot of ways is super harmful and not necessarily the most positive environment for girls, especially as they’re coming into their bodies as women.”

The Wisconsin native resumed her professional running career in the half-marathon last year, winning in Texas in December, but even she couldn’t have predicted her success in last weekend’s race, claiming that finishing in the “10th to 20th range” would be a good performance.

“All of these women are really good and have the times [to back it up],” she said. ”I want to go out and be realistic, but not count myself out.”