Hokie Club
BLACKSBURG – For most athletes, especially those in track and field, the Olympic Games represent the peak of one's career. After years of training and rounds of competition, only the world's most elite athletes earn their chance to compete. One of those elite athletes in U.S. track and field history is Tech's own Hyleas Fountain-Vaught.
"Not everyone gets that opportunity, and that's what makes it so special," Olympic silver medalist and Hokies assistant track and field coach Hyleas Fountain-Vaught said. "Only three people in the sport of track and field get to go in an event from each country. Some people's countries only send one or two, so to know that you made that spot just makes it that much more special."
In 2008 Fountain-Vaught was one of the few athletes that found themselves competing in the Olympics and one of even fewer to earn a spot on the podium in Beijing, having earned silver for the United States in the heptathlon. Making her feat even more incredible is the fact that only two women have medaled in the heptathlon for the United States: Hyleas Fountain-Vaught and the legendary Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
"It's definitely an out-of-body experience," Fountain-Vaught said of the moment she earned Olympic silverware. "Not everyone gets to achieve the highest goal in life. People dream but being able to fulfill that dream was an amazing feeling. It's one of those things where you're at a loss for words unless someone's been in your shoes."
A track athlete since the age of seven, Fountain-Vaught's journey to the Olympics was consistent and like so many it took years of dedication to develop. Competing across sprints, hurdles, and jumps at Central Dauphin East High School in Harrisburg, Penn., Fountain-Vaught qualified for the U.S. Olympic Team Trials as a senior in the high jump in 2000 but decided to forego the U.S. Championships in favor of the World Junior Olympics. She won gold in the high jump, but already had her eyes set on something new.
"I knew in my heart that I wanted to be a heptathlete, and I just love the challenge of it," Fountain-Vaught said. "When I did my first heptathlon in junior college, I compared my score to scores at the NCAA and at the professional level, and I told myself I could do this, I wasn't far off."
At Barton Community College in Kansas and then at the University of Georgia, Fountain-Vaught expanded her track and field ambitions into the world of multi events. The heptathlon consists of seven events (100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m, long jump, javelin, 800m) as athletes contest the first four on day one and the next three on the second day.
Fountain-Vaught quickly found success in the multi events, adding NCAA Championships in the heptathlon to her long jump national titles. A diversified talent competing in the most well-balanced event she rose to the top of the U.S. ranks in the heptathlon, eventually winning the event at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials with a personal best of 6,667 points.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Fountain-Vaught originally finished in the bronze medal position and was elevated to silver after failed drug tests from the second-place athlete. Four years later Fountain-Vaught returned to the Olympics in London to compete in the heptathlon. With one of the greatest heptathlon careers in U.S. history, Fountain-Vaught holds the third best heptathlon in the nation's history with a personal record of 6,735 points, the highest American point total since Jackie Joyner-Kersee in 1988.
Since then, Fountain-Vaught has translated her Olympic experience into coaching aptitude. She started at North Caroline A&T before heading to Bethune Cookman and finally Virginia Tech. Fountain-Vaught knows that her unique position as an Olympian gives her athletes a valuable asset.
"The knowledge that I have is years of working hard and knowing that the knowledge I'm giving them can make them successful if they believe in me and believe in themselves," Fountain-Vaught said. "I went through it, so I know what it takes, and I know that the things you don't do won't get you there. So I try to guide my athletes and get the best out of them at practice every day."
Practice is where the race is won, and Fountain-Vaught has subscribed to that mindset since her days of competing.
"If you can make it through my practice, a meet is going to be easy," Fountain-Vaught said. "Practice is so hard that when you get to the meet it's going to be a breeze. I make my athletes work hard at practice but when they get to the track it doesn't feel like that much, and when they get that success, they get excited and hopefully they want more from it."
Fountain-Vaught's journey as an Olympian, a record-holding athlete, and a college coach has given her experiences and opportunities that let her impart a unique perspective as one of the best athletes in the world to the Hokies competing at the Tokyo Olympics.
"My biggest thing in 2008 when I competed at my first Olympics was going in with no expectations and that's when I performed my best," Fountain-Vaught said. "I didn't put a lot of pressure on myself, if you just focus on what you need to do and not focus on anyone else, it'll at least feel a little bit easier. In 2008 I had the privilege of having Jackie Joyner-Kersee as a mentor and that's one of the things she told me. Don't get into the hype of the meet, that's when people start going bananas instead of treating it like any other meet or competition that you've been to before."
Many athletes strive to reach the pinnacle of their sport. Few earn the chance and even fewer take that chance and run with it. Hyleas Fountain-Vaught reached the summit of the track and field world in 2008 by joining Jackie Joyner-Kersee as the only Americans to earn Olympic medals in the heptathlon. Since then, Fountain-Vaught has taken up coaching, married Hokies Associate Head Coach Tim Vaught, had two children with another on the way, and is 13 years removed from her historic silver medal performance in Beijing. No matter what life brings or where it leads, that silver medal will always be with her. In Fountain-Vaught's own words, "once an Olympian, always an Olympian."