Former Hawkeye sprinter Brittany Brown’s career has been defined by an underdog status. That same underdog won bronze in the women’s 200-meter final at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Team USA’s Gabby Thomas and Saint Lucia’s Julien Alfred captured gold and silver, respectively. But the third sprinter who earned her spot on the podium beside the two was Brown of Claremont, California, by way of the University of Iowa.

An Iowa alum, she was one of four Hawkeyes to medal this summer — along with wrestlers Spencer Lee and Kennedy Blades, and rower Eve Stewart.

She dominated on the track throughout her five-year collegiate career with the Hawkeyes from 2014 to 2018, becoming a four-time Big Ten champion in the 200-meter dash and a one-time champion in the 4×100-meter relay.

By the end of the 2024 summer, she proved on the largest stage that she’s one of the best in the world.

Coming from Claremont

From a northeast suburb of Los Angeles, Brown dealt with asthma problems growing up. Running was a difficult activity for her, let alone competing in a running sport. But this didn’t stop her from trying it out.

The sprinter continued to run track when she got to high school and became one of the best runners — not only in the state of California but in the entire country.

In fact, throughout her four-year high school tenure, Brown composed a lengthy resume:

• 100-meter national champion at the 2013 USATF National Junior Olympic Track and Field Championships
• California state runner-up in the 100-meter and 200-meter
• Ranked third in the 100-meter and fourth in the 200-meter in the nation among high school seniors
• Logged personal-best times of 11.49 seconds in the 100-meter and 23.68 in the 200-meter

But there’s one thing Brown failed to do: become a state champion. Looking back at it, Brown said she is grateful for the experience of competing among the best in the state.

“I feel like I’ve been a slow burn type of story,” Brown said in an interview with The Daily Iowan. “I made it to the California state meet once, and it was a lot of trial-and-error trying to get to that state meet. But I finally made it, and it was a great experience … it was a process for me to get to that point.”

On the tail-end of her never-ending pursuit of a state tournament appearance, Brown knew she wanted to extend her track career beyond high school through the energy and passion of one small moment.

“I was at a track meet in high school … they would play drums while we ran the 4×400-meter relay,” Brown recalled. “I was winning, and the drums were going crazy. It was a night meet, and the lights were going crazy. So that’s when I knew I wanted to compete collegiately.”

West Coast to Midwest

Brown’s youth success didn’t translate to the recruitment she was hoping for. In fact, Iowa Director of Track and Field Joey Woody told The Cedar Rapids Gazette that she was not highly recruited out of high school and wasn’t even signed by the time the state meet in her senior year rolled around, which is unusual for collegiate athletes.

The Iowa track program wasn’t looking at Brown; that was, until a high school friend and then-Iowa jumper Klyvens Delaunay told Woody about the California-based sprinter.

Shortly after Hawkeye coaches started recruiting her, she made the visit to Iowa City, where she immediately fell in love with the campus. She committed to Iowa shortly after.

“[Woody] was shocked that I wasn’t signed,” Brown said. “So it was basically word-of-mouth. My coach that recruited me didn’t know much about me until my high school teammate told him about me.”

The opportunity to run track in the Big Ten conference was too good to pass up. She made the move from the West Coast to the Midwest in 2013 and immediately made her mark on the Iowa track program.

Brown’s 2014 collegiate track season was highlighted by breaking the then-31-year-old school 60-meter dash record with a 7.41 finish at the Big 4 Duals prelims. She was named an outdoor season second-team All-American.

In the 2015 collegiate season, Brown won the 200-meter race at the Alex Wilson Invite with a time of 23.93 and broke her own then-200-meter school record while placing second in 22.89 at the Big Ten Championships.

She ran the first leg in the relay that placed second at the Big Ten Championships, and this all led to an outdoor honorable-mention All-American nod.

A hip injury kept her out throughout the 2016 indoor season, and she pulled her hamstring during the spring season — limiting nearly her entire track season that year.

But where injuries could ruin a career, hers made them. That’s because the 2017 season was when Brown became a household name.

Brown was named first team All-American for both indoor and outdoor seasons while capturing the Big Ten 200-meter title with 22.83 indoor and 22.30 outdoor performances.

In the midst of this breakout season, Brown got the sense she could run track for a living.

“Professionally, I knew around my junior year of college,” Brown recalled. “We went to a meet in California, which is where I’m from, and I ran against some pros and did really well. I was like, ‘OK, I can do this. I can really do this at a professional level.’”

She capped off her collegiate career with All-American honors for both indoor and outdoor seasons again, and she captured another Big Ten title in the 200-meter race with a 22.93-second finish. She left the Iowa track program with school records in the 100-meter and 200-meter with times of 11.28 and 22.30, respectively.

Going professional

Once she finished college and began the journey of becoming a professional track athlete, Brown struggled to make a living for herself.

She stayed in Iowa City, working a multitude of different jobs just to make ends meet while in search of earning a shoe contract — something that the most successful track athletes need.

Steady focus and training produced a second-place finish at the U.S. Championships that ultimately earned her a 2019 selection for the 200-meter race at the World Championships. There, she won silver — and signed a deal with Adidas the next year.

Come 2024, Brown had the experience under her belt to succeed at the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, finishing second in the 200-meter event with a personal record of 21.90 seconds and qualifying for Paris.

“We are all so proud of Brittany and everything she has overcome to make her first Olympic team,” Woody said. “She had her PR performance at the perfect time to punch her ticket to Paris, and we are so excited for her.”

Signing a new deal with Nike shortly after, Brown’s journey to Paris was less exploration and absorption and more execution, culminating in the third-place finish to stand at the podium in the end as one of the fastest sprinters in the world.

Still, she soaked in the environment as much as possible — including meeting the likes of Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles — before returning to the U.S. for a tour across the country that will culminate in a return to Iowa City next month.

For now.

As the 2028 Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles, Brown’s sights are set on competing again — this time in her backyard.

“That is definitely the plan to do that,” Brown said. “I firmly believe I would love to end my career at the [2028 Los Angeles Olympics], my home state. That would be a full circle moment for me.”