Hampton grad shakes off 'flat tire' in memorable Olympic trials performance

Distance runner Elaina Balouris Tabb was about four steps into the biggest race of her life when everything went wrong.

Balouris’ heel was clipped by another runner just after the opening gun in the 10,000-meter race at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team Trials on June 26 in Eugene, Ore., and the former Hampton star got a “flat tire.”

As 40 other top U.S. female runners pulled away, Balouris Tabb knelt on the track in front of spectators at Hayward Stadium and a national TV audience and frantically tried to pull her size 9 Adidas racing spike back over her right heel.

“Literally my first thought was, ‘Oh my gosh. What do you do in this situation?’ ” she said in mid-July from her home in Boston. “I was putting on my shoe and looking up, seeing them run away from me. I was like, ‘This can not be happening.’ ”

Her disbelief was understandable. Balouris Tabb, 29, had been preparing for this moment for half of her life.

She is among the most decorated female distance runners from Western Pennsylvania in the past decade, winning the 3,200 WPIAL Class AAA title in 2010 as a senior at Hampton and becoming a six-time Division I All-American at William & Mary. She joined the professional ranks as a distance runner in 2014, signing with Adidas-sponsored Boston Athletic Association.

First flat tire in a race ?? https://t.co/pub9Dg6ayb

— Elaina Balouris Tabb (@ElainaTabb) June 27, 2021

To heighten the stakes, Balouris Tabb had missed the cut for the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials by one second and, with a teaching and high school coaching career awaiting, she knew this would be her final competitive U.S. race.

Yet there she was, on bended knee with shaking hands and a wet, displaced shoe on another steamy summer morning in the Pacific Northwest.

“We were drenched because we were all pouring cold water on us and had ice all over us to stay cool,” she said. “So my shoe was wet. It was hard to get over your heel, especially when your hands are shaking.

“It was the weirdest experience. But there was a point where I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to be fine.’ Then I immediately went into attack mode. I thought, ‘This is not going to be how I end my career and how my trials are going to go.’ That fired me up to catch everyone. … I was very much, ‘This is not going to be my story.’ ”

With a renewed calm and focus, Balouris Tabb fixed her shoe — losing about 15 seconds on the field — and despite being dead last in the 41-runner field after 1,000 meters, she rallied to finish 24th with a time of 33 minutes, 10.86 seconds.

Only the top three finishers qualified for the Tokyo Games — that was never a realistic goal for her, she said, instead eyeing top 10 — but an unfortunate start ended with a display of Balouris Tabb’s determination.

“That shows the person she is,” said California-based Sarah Pagano, a former teammate of Balouris Tabb’s for Boston Athletic Association who placed 33rd in the race. “That could happen, and someone could get so angry and upset that you are done and out of it. But she was calm, and she got herself back into it. That’s hard to do, especially on such a big stage.”

Balouris Tabb has competed on gradually bigger stages since she started running with her dad, Dean, in the park as a little girl.

She was the top female finisher — as a 10-year-old fifth-grader — in her first race, the Hampton HAEE 5K run-walk, her dad said. Elaina signed up for the Hampton Middle School track team and fell in love with the sport, eventually competing in track and cross country.

“Once I joined the team and I found success and it was really fun, I just continued doing it,” she said.

She racked up medals at Hampton, placing top three at the WPIAL Class AAA cross country championships twice and top six in the state twice.

She still holds the Hampton school record in the 3,200 (10:43.9) and placed 11th in the NCAA cross country championships and fifth in the 10,000 at the NCAA track and field championships as a senior at William & Mary.

Her professional running career took her around the globe. She represented the United States on five continents, racing in the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Guiyang, China and Kampala, Uganda; the World Half Marathon Championships in Valencia, Spain; and the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, where she placed fourth in the 10,000.

“She’s just a great person, and being around her definitely elevates everyone else,” said Pagano, Balouris Tabb’s BAA teammate from 2014-19. “She’s awesome to be around.”

Balouris Tabb had no regrets about her performance in her first and only Olympic Trials, with her parents, Dean and Diane, and husband, Brian, in the stands. The 6.2-mile race was held in 85-90 degree heat, and Balouris Tabb had bloodied, raw heels afterward.

“It was a really cool experience,” she said. “I definitely was hoping to place better, but I’m really proud of the way I raced. The last eight laps were a death march with the heat. … It was just brutal. It wasn’t the outcome I was hoping for, but at the same time, I am proud of the way I competed.”

Balouris Tabb is moving onto the next phase of her life. She and Brian, who were married in October 2017, are relocating to Pittsburgh in late July, where she will work as a math teacher at Oakland Catholic and, if all goes well, coach track and cross country at the all-girls high school.

“I want to prioritize other things now in my life,” she said.

Balouris Tabb won’t stop running. She is planning to compete in her first marathon in the fall, probably the Boston Marathon. Considering she logged upwards of 90 miles a week while training as a pro runner in Boston, the distance won’t be an issue.

“I know I can complete one,” she said. “It’s just a matter of how fast I can complete it. That’s what pushes me and gets me excited.”

Regardless of her marathon time, Balouris Tabb always will have that unforgettable moment at the U.S. Olympic trials on a scalding day in Oregon with her racing spike partway off.

“Say (her heel never gets clipped), and say she finishes 18th,” Dean Balouris said. “OK. So, instead, she finishes 24th. This is way more memorable.”