By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Many times, a photograph only tells part of the story. A picture from June 30, 2008, at the finish line of Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. is a prime example. Christian Smith, a former standout from Pawnee Heights High School and Kansas State University, is caught falling across the finish line to secure a third-place finish at the U.S. Olympic Trials and secure his spot in the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. The unlikely road to China, full of bumps, began when Smith was growing up in Pawnee County.
"Being out there, hard work is just how you live your life," he said. "You don't cut corners. You do the job and you do it to the best of your ability. I think I had a lot of people in my life where that was the emphasis."
Those people included his parents and coaches, in particular his basketball coach and PE teacher, Jay Artaz.
"We did pushups, situps,and laps in PE," Smith said. "Some kids probably hated it but I loved PE. It was like training."
Making the Olympic games draws a certain amount of fame, but Smith's third-place finish in the Olympic Trials is noted as one of the greatest in American history.
Nick Symmonds, a seven-time outdoor track champion at Div. III Willamette University in Oregon, won the race in a personal best 1:44.10. The University of Oregon's Andrew Wheating finished second in 1:45.03. Needing a top-three finish to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team, Smith was in fourth place until a big lean at the tape secured the third-place finish by six-hundredths of a second in 1:45.47. It was the first time Smith ran under the Olympic qualifying time of 1:46 required to run in Beijing.
"I was behind him with 10 meters left," said Smith. "I knew it was going to take a ridiculous lean, so I knew it was going to end up with me on the ground. It wasn't a question of whether that was going to happen. At the end, I just leaned as hard as I could and dove."
Symmonds, a club training partner of Smith's, and Wheating were at the back of the pack with 200 meters to go. Symmonds cut through traffic and cruised to the win by nearly a second. Wheating made his move on the outside.
"Wheating went by with about 40 meters left," Smith said. "I thought he went by with 80 meters left. That last 40 meters was an eternity almost. It was just building and building."
On Aug. 20, 2008, Smith ran in the sixth of eight preliminary heats at the Olympic Games in Beijing. The top two runners in each heat plus the next eight overall fastest runners qualified for the next round. Smith ran a 1:48.20 to place fourth in his heat and miss round two by 0.27 seconds. Wheating also failed to make it out of round one. Symmonds placed fifth in his semifinal heat to miss the finals by half a second. He later placed fifth in the 2012 Games in London.
Smith's story began long before the trials in Oregon. As a freshman at Pawnee Heights, he finished fourth in the Class 1A 800m run (2:02.50). He was part of the 4x8 team that won the title, and the Tigers missed the team championship by just three points.
Pawnee Heights won the state title in 2000. The 4x8 team won another title and Christian and his brother, Trevor, swept the mid-distance events with Trevor winning titles in the 800 and 1600, and Christian finishing behind him.
Christian was again a 4x8 state champion as a junior (8:17.44), and the 800m champion in 2001 (1:59.65). He completed the sweep of 4x8 titles as a senior (8:18.70), and also won titles that year in the 4x4 (3:26.28), 800 (1:53.29) and 1600 (4:26.77). The Tigers beat Deerfield by 11 points for the 1A championship.
Smith received one final gift before graduating from Pawnee Heights. Artaz, that hard-nosed coach and PE teacher, carried the 2002 Olympic Torch through Wichita ahead of the Salt Lake City Games. After he passed away on March 4, 2002, his wife, Nancy, gave Smith the gloves Artaz wore during the torch run.
"He was someone who really emphasized hard work in athletics," said Smith. "He was always a believer that if you worked hard enough, you really could accomplish anything if you wanted it."
At Kansas State University, Smith set the indoor NCAA record at 1,000 meters in 2:19.57, a time that has since been surpassed. That time still stands as the school record 18 years later, as do his times in the outdoor 800 (1:44.86) and 1,500 runs (3:38.10).
As a sophomore at Pawnee Heights, Smith once had to write down his goals. That included a far-fetched idea of making the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials in Sacramento, Calif. He made the trials and just missed a spot in the 800m finals.
"I was just happy to be there in 2004, and I outdid my expectations," he said. "That definitely propelled me into thinking more was possible."
In 2006, Smith won the NCAA indoor title in the mile (4:12.75). Later that year, he set the K-State outdoor record in the 800m run in Italy. In 2006, he was the only American to crack 1:45 in the 800 and 3:39 in the 1500.
After graduating from K-State, Smith moved to Oregon and joined the famed Oregon Track Club alongside Symmonds. On a return trip to Manhattan in 2007, Smith woke to a stabbing pain in his abdomen. Smith's appendix had burst, but even doctors had difficulty believing him because, as a runner used to dealing with pain, he rated the pain only 6 out of 10.
The high pain tolerance nearly cost Smith his life. A week later, the burst appendix remained untreated. A CT scan revealed the damage but Smith's infection was so severe it had to be drained before surgeons could operate. Two liters of fluid were drained from his lungs. Smith remained in the hospital for weeks and did not eat solid food for four months. He lost 20 pounds from his already light 165-pound racing frame.
Beginning in 1952, a series of Olympic trials were held at various California venues. As the University of Oregon track and field program gained fame under coach Bill Bowerman in the 1960s and 70s, the trials were moved to the old Hayward Field for the 1972 and 1976 trials. Subsequent trials were held in Los Angels, Indianapolis, Atlanta, and Sacramento before returning to Hayward in 2008, 10 years before it was replaced by the current version of the stadium.
"I grew up loving Steve Prefontaine," Smith said. "There are two movies that were shot at Hayward. The new stadium is awesome but the old one was historic. When you go to Europe and race, a lot of places really love track. Eugene is a place in the United States that loves track. There's just a different atmosphere there than in other places."
With the 2008 Olympic trials looming, Smith still had not run a qualifying team to earn a place in Eugene. A week before the trials, Smith had climbed to No. 31 in the U.S. 800m rankings. Unfortunately, only the top-30 would run at Hayward. Then Smith finally caught a break. Alan Webb, whose American mile record lasted from 2007 to 2023, scratched from the 800 to focus on the 1500. Smith was in and the rest, as they say, is history.
Despite entering the field as the No. 30 seed, Smith ran a 1:47.97 for fifth place in the preliminaries. He missed the Olympic standard by 0.011 seconds to place third in the semifinals. The top six finishers in the final all came in under the 1:46 standard to compete in Beijing. Other notables at the trials that year include Tyson Gay, former Barton Cougar and still the American record holder in the 100m dash, American 400m record holder Sanya Richards (Ross), and Allyson Felix, the most decorated athlete in U.S. track and field history.
Smith ran his final race at the 2012 Olympic Trials, again in Eugene. He now lives in Gardner with his wife, Sara, a doctor of veterinary medicine, and their three children. His life is more ordinary now than it was then, but every four years as the Olympic Games approach, he reaches into the memory bank for one of the great sports stories in American history.