Road to Tokyo: Tori Franklin - USA Track and Field

I had wanted to join track since I was maybe in the third or fourth grade, but there wasn't a track team at school for that grade. It wasn't until you got to sixth grade. So, for those next two or three years, I couldn’t wait to get to junior high so I could join track. It was a passion that brewed on its own. I just loved the competitiveness of the sport. 

I have five older brothers and two younger sisters, but I was the first girl born. So I grew up a little rough. I think that's where my competitiveness really began. I was going to beat them at anything I could, because anything they could do, I could do better.

I didn't even really know track was a professional sport until high school when I saw it in the Olympics. And as far as me thinking that I had a future in it – that was something that kept being told to me before it really stuck and became my own decision. It wasn’t until my sophomore year of college after my second time going to Nationals where I saw track on a larger scale and thought, “Okay, this isn’t something that I'm just doing because people say I'm okay at it. This is something that I actually enjoy doing; it's something I love to do. And I'm gonna put 100% of my effort into this and see where it takes me.” 

One of the biggest motivators for me is that I'm not the best at it, and that always drives me forward, to continue to learn more about the event, to see how I can be more efficient, and just to continue to improve to be the absolute best that I think I can be – the highest level of my potential. 

Track has really taught me about commitment. I've been doing track for a long time now, for longer than a lot of things that I've ever been doing. The only other long-term commitment I have besides track and field is to my mom and dad. It’s taught me about commitment, and really pursuing something that you believe in, even if other people don't necessarily believe in it. I feel like sometimes, other people don't believe in you until you believe in yourself first. Also, I’ve learned the importance of having a team. Yes, everyone's not always going to support you, but there are people out there that truly do. And it's important to find those people. 

Failure is something that happens quite often in track and field, you just don't win everything. Not always hitting the goals that you set out for yourself. For me, one big obstacle I faced was when I graduated college, and I didn't have a sponsor for two years. I had many, many jobs that first year – working from 4am, until 2pm and then getting home, going to practice for two or three hours and not getting home till 9:30pm, and then having to get up at 3:30am in the morning. That was a really tough period in my career mentally. But I think it's also made me super grateful for what I have now. And it makes me want to work even harder because there's no reason in the world why I should be jumping what I was then when I had all of that going on. 

I’ve had a couple of defining moments in my career. The first one was when I made the 2017 outdoor World Championship team. I was invited to that team after I’d traveled all over Europe trying to get the qualification. I jumped a PR jump, 14 meters, for the first time. And from there I just got so much energy. And I was like, “Snap. Well, I'm going to make the indoor World Team too.” And I did make that team too, which was another turning point because that's when I recommitted myself to the sport. After seeing the international track world I thought, “This is what I want to do.” And from there, it just skyrocketed. That was the same year that I broke the American record – less than a year from when I first ever jumped 14 meters I broke the outdoor America record. 

The newest part of my journey right now is training in France. I initially moved here in December of 2019, and I was here until about March 2020, and training was going well. I competed in the indoor season, and I broke the American record again which was so great and a great testament to my training here. COVID-19 made things rough -- I had to flee the country! But I'm back, and I’m really excited for this journey. And I look forward to the training here that is going to really make a difference going into Tokyo 2021.

The shutdown happened in France weeks before anything really shut down in the US. I went to my coach and asked what I should do, and he basically said, “You get out of here. You go save yourself!” So I got a ticket and was out the next day. I was just gone, I didn’t even know where I was going. Finding out that Tokyo 2020 was postponed was really difficult for me because I felt like I had literally uprooted my entire life to train for this and live in France. And I felt like I was in a place where I wasn't supposed to be. I was supposed to be living my life in France, supposed to be training with this group. It’s hard to let go of your plans, but that was something that I had to get used to.

Coming home from France ended up being a huge blessing in multiple ways. One was that I got to see my family so much during that time and that wasn't something that I got to do a lot the last few years. And then just getting a lot of time to work on my writing. That was when I started, the second book I'm actually writing. And just a lot of introspective work; I feel like I have grown so much during this period in so many ways, I couldn't even start to tell you about it. So, as difficult as the COVID-19 pandemic has been, there’s a lot of beauty and blessings that have come from it too.