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Track Star Elle Purrier Of Montgomery To Run For Team U.S.A. In World Championships

a woman on a track tying her shoes
Aisha McAdams, Courtesy
Elle Purrier, who grew up on a dairy farm in Montgomery, is headed to the World Athletic Championships in Doha.

Elle Purrier grew up on a dairy farm in Montgomery, Vermont. Now, the 24-year-old is one of the best track runners in the state's history, and she's heading to Doha, Qatar, to compete for Team U.S.A. in the World Athletic Championships.

Purrier told VPR's Mitch Wertlieb that growing up on a farm helped prepare her for the work required to excel athletically.

"There's a lot of similarities between growing up on a farm and the training that I'm doing - working really hard, and not being afraid to have a little grit," she said. "Those type of things prepared me. Life lessons that I learned on the farm translate well into training and preparing for races like these."

Purrier said that at the championships, her goal is to take things one step at a time.

"First of all it's just to gain experience at this kind of level," she said. "I've never made a team like this before, so I know it's going to be really new and obviously I just want to do the best that I can."

She added, "So I have to race twice. The first race is on October 2nd, and if I do well there, then I will advance to the final in the 5k. So that's my first goal. And then from there it's just to finish as high as I can."

Purrier heads to Doha today.

A graduate of NYU with a Master's Degree in journalism, Mitch has more than 20 years experience in radio news. He got his start as news director at NYU's college station, and moved on to a news director (and part-time DJ position) for commercial radio station WMVY on Martha's Vineyard. But public radio was where Mitch wanted to be and he eventually moved on to Boston where he worked for six years in a number of different capacities at member station WBUR...as a Senior Producer, Editor, and fill-in co-host of the nationally distributed Here and Now. Mitch has been a guest host of the national NPR sports program "Only A Game". He's also worked as an editor and producer for international news coverage with Monitor Radio in Boston.
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