Local Runner Reworks Future After Olympic
42 MAY 2020 | TheJournalNJ.com
Dreams are Postponed
BY TIM MORRIS
The last couple of months have been a whirlwind
of emotions for Rob Napolitano.
“It has been a roller coaster,” said Napolitano,
one of the country’s leading middle distance runners.
“I went from happy to frustrated to content.”
Back at the end of February, the Red Bank
Catholic High School and Columbia University
graduate, who has Puerto Rican roots on his
mother’s side, learned that his petition to the
island’s Track and Field Federation to represent
Puerto Rico at the 20202 Tokyo Summer Olympics
had been accepted. Because of his personal bests
of 3:37.1 for 1,500 meters and 3:54.22 for the
mile, Napolitano had already achieved the Olympic
qualifying standard for the 1,500, thereby automatically
qualifying for the games. He was an
Olympian – every runner’s dream.
That euphoria would quickly turn to frustration
when it was announced that because of
the worldwide pandemic, the Summer Olympics
would be postponed to 2021.
“It was emotional. I was sad about it,” Napolitano
simply said. “It would have been hard to
Photo courtesy of Mike McLaughlin, Columbia Athletics. Before becoming one of the country’s leading professional middledistance
runners, Red Bank Catholic grad Rob Napolitano was an All-American and Ivy League champion at Columbia University.
continue running, but knowing I was an Olympian makes it easier to go
out the door and train.”
The Olympics weren’t all that was put on hold for the former Casey
standout. Like so many of the Olympic prospects, Napolitano was ready to
end his running career and start the rest of his life following the games. He
had interviewed with Bank of America about a position as a global markets
analyst.
“Pretty much everybody was interviewing for jobs at firms and ready
to end that chapter of running,” Napolitano explained. “My plan was to
run the Olympics and be done. I’ll have to push those plans back.”
Instead of looking ahead to a career in finance, Napolitano will have
to scrape by for another year on his contract with the HOKA New Jersey/
New York Track Club and what he earns from math and English tutoring.
“I’ll make it some way,” he said.
Napolitano noted that this will be a difficult year for track and field
athletes. Aside from the Olympics’ cancellation, there are also no competitions
for runners to earn money. In addition, many athletes’ shoe contracts
are up in the fall, leaving everyone fighting for what will be reduced funds
from the shoe companies and other sponsorships. Like Napolitano, many
athletes face the same agonizing decision of giving up on their Olympic
dream or putting everything off for another year.
Napolitano, who lives in New York City, has returned to his family’s
home in Brick where he is doing light training through the virus lockdown.
“It has been three or four weeks since I trained with anyone from
HOKA,” said Napolitano. “I had run a lot over the previous months, working
up to 87 miles a week. I was in good shape.”
With the Olympics pushed back to 2021, Napolitano has plenty of
time to prepare for the games, now scheduled for July 23 through Aug. 8.
After experiencing a range of emotions, Napolitano is now content.
He knows he is going to Tokyo next summer, and that will drive him to
continue on and make the necessary sacrifices needed to be an Olympian.
Since graduating from Columbia, where he was a two-time All-American
and seven-time Ivy League champion, and joining HOKA and its famed
coach Frank Gagliano, Napolitano has emerged as one of a nation’s premier
milers. He has even been ranked as high as No. 40 in the world for
the 1,500 meters. In 2019, he was the runner-up at the US Indoor Nationals
in the 1,000 meters and this past winter placed third in the Wanamaker
Mile at the Millrose Games.
Making the decision to run for Puerto Rico in the Olympics was not an
easy one. His roots do run deep in Puerto Rico as the family still visits his
grandfather’s house on the island twice a year. Still, not taking that route
through the US Olympic Trials made for a tough decision.
“I felt a bit uncomfortable,” he said of making the decision.
Napolitano remarked that he “always suspected” he could he could
gain Puerto Rican citizenship and make the Olympic team.
Last November, he started the process of becoming eligible as a Puerto
Rican Olympian, contacting the president of the island’s Track and Field
Federation. World Athletic approved the transfer, and at the end of February,
he received word that he would be going to the Olympics.
Napolitano received help from his HOKA teammates and his RBC
coach Rob DeFilippis in rendering his choice.
“Coach DeFilippis told me you only go through this once, so do it
right,” he recalled.
His HOKA teammates “told me just do it,” Napolitano remarked.
What tipped the scale was not wasting the opportunity he had to
compete in the Olympics.
“It would eat at me if I didn’t do it,” he said.
Napolitano now has 16 months to prep for the Olympic 1,500 meters,
a race that has been won by all-time greats like Herb Elliott, Peter
Snell, John Walker, Sebastian Coe and Hicham El-Guerrouj.
/TheJournalNJ.com