ROME – Which is better, running in the Olympics for the British team, or passing the Colorado Bar Exam?
Running in the Olympics for the first time – or the second?
Running in the Olympics with no fans – or having your family there to cheer for you?
All in all, it’s very interesting being 29-year-old Lizzie Bird, who late Sunday night here at the European track and field championships all but assured herself of a second Games when, by a margin of roughly four-plus seconds after 3000 meters – about 1.86 miles – she finished third in the steeplechase, in 9 minutes, 18.39 seconds.
The Paris steeple qualifying mark for women is 9:23.
Alice Finot of France won the race in 9:16.22. Germany’s Gesa Felicitas Krause took second, 9:18.06.
Lizzie Bird, right, on the medals podium // European Athletics/Getty Images
A top-two finish at the UK championships at the end of the month means an automatic ticket for Bird to Paris. She probably, though, is already – given her body of work – on the way there.
As one of the most interesting – if under-appreciated – athletes on the British, or for that matter, any, team.
Amazingly, though Lizzie Bird has been around the scene for some years now, the next article about her in the mainstream British press will be – the first. The British running trade publication Athletics Weekly did a feature in November 2022. The U.S. running-scene outlet Fast Women did a story in January 2023. That seems to be about it.
Which is kinda crazy because World Athletics president Seb Coe has long been a champion for the athlete voice, and Lizzie Bird has not just running talent but a voice.
Listen to her and you might think you hear – hmm, the makings of someone like a next Seb Coe.
Or, for that matter, someone like Anita DeFrantz — who competed for the United States in rowing in 1976 in Montreal, winning a bronze medal, went to law school and, among her many achievements, has been an IOC member since 1986.
Frank Shorter, the 1972 Munich marathon winner, is a law school grad and served as the first chair of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
Michael Lenard, the Los Angeles lawyer and 1984 U.S. Olympian in team handball, is a key player in overseeing the international sports court called CAS.
Like each and all of them, Lizzie Bird has self-assurance, presence and the ability to think on her feet. She has what Coe has, too: the ability to move seamlessly between British and American worlds. If the Brits were smart, they should seriously consider nominating her at the next opportunity to be an athlete candidate for IOC membership.
Because she says what she thinks, as appropriate, and she can handle the heat.
Here, for instance, is her position on the way the United States deals with newcomers, her area of interest, “I think being an immigrant myself, I’ve seen a lot of problems in the U.S. immigration system. It’s unfair. It’s racist. It’s cruel. And I want to try to fight against some of those [issues].”
She’s also self-deprecating and funny: “So my teammates were like, ‘Oh, the Bar! ‘Legally Blonde’ took that! Because it’s American. It’s just totally different.”
Lizzie Bird is the younger of two daughters. She was born in the Philippines. When she was a baby, the family moved to Pakistan. There were also some years in Dubai before, by the time Lizzie was about 12, they were back in Britain.
Geologist father Patrick, now 65, was in the oil and gas business.
Patrick and mom Virginia, now 64, did not push Lizzie into the running thing. Not hardly. When Lizzie was 9, mom was in a Dubai running club and Lizzie either had to sit in the car or join in. The car, mom said, was hot. And boring. So, Lizzie opted to join in and won a prize for accurately predicting her finishing time. “Never driven by her parents!” Virginia said.
Back in Britain, a teacher suggested Lizzie join a local running club. By high school she was good enough that she could think about where she might want to get better at a U.S. university.
She went to Princeton.
Where she became a three-time Ivy League champion.
But also got hurt, repeatedly.
She graduated from Princeton in 2017 and moved to the University of San Francisco, earning a master’s degree the next year in international studies. And got hurt, again. And, meanwhile, became seriously interested in immigration issues.
By 2019, she not only had made the British team but ran at the Doha world championships, running 9:30.13, then a personal best, one place out of the final.
Hmm, she thought. Maybe this running thing could – work out.
For that next year, amid the pandemic, shuttling back to Scotland to be with her parents and then to Leeds to train with a group, the focus was running. In Tokyo, in the summer of 2021, before an empty stadium, she finished ninth in the Olympics, lowering the British record to 9:19.68.
Now it would be law school and running. She and boyfriend William Bertrand, now 29 as well, a software engineer, were off to Boulder.
In 2022, she ran 9:07.87 at the Monaco Diamond League, a new British record in the steeple.
In 2023, she was – uh – kinda busy. Also, she came down with a case of mono. Her best that year, in London in July, was 9:59.12.
It for sure has been a run these past two years for Lizzie Bird in Colorado, legally speaking.
Only the top students make what’s called law review, and doing so means writing a long article about a fine point in the law. Lizzie’s, which revolved around a data-services contract involving the agency known as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was formally published just days ago.
She took the Bar, as noted, and passed. The overall pass rate in Colorado is 59%.
She got herself a one-year clerkship with a U.S. District Court judge, which is very difficult to achieve and typically a first step for those who go on to do big things in their legal careers.
Take all that into account – and, now, here she was Sunday night, four or so seconds faster than she needed to be to almost surely make a second Olympic team.
Running geeks: Lizzie Bird was nearly 31 seconds faster than 11 months ago in London.
With mom and dad and bronze medal at the famed warmup track outside Rome’s Stadio Olimpico // photo courtesy Virginia Bird
“Excited, nervous, proud and better than watching from a midge-infested field in Scotland,” Virginia said after Sunday’s race, a midge being the kind of bug an American might call a ‘no-see-um.’
“Just delighted that she has almost made it to Paris,” Virginia added later. “That in itself is achievement enough, and I know she will give it her best shot.”
Her daughter was asked to reflect on the lane she has now given herself — which so very few people get to take — to a second Games
About, in particular, on the one hand, running, and on the other, law.
“I think the running is the selfish part of me and the law practice is the less selfish part of me,” Lizzie Bird said.
“… Running, you’re really focused on yourself. And I think with law and immigration law, you’re focused on other people.”
And the goal is to make a difference? Helping those other people?
“I hope so. That,” Lizzie Bird said, “is the plan.”