Brahe-Pedersen, Beckmon Savoring Their Time Together As They Chase More History At The Oregon State Meet

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Photos by Kim Spir/TrackTown Youth League

They stood there, on the podium, wearing free sunglasses, looking straight ahead and not at one another. 

Mia Brahe-Pedersen and Sophia Beckmon had not yet met. 

Two 12-year olds, unaware of the impact they might make on the sport but already pooling dreams and aspirations, competed in a TrackTown Youth League meet on the eve of historic Hayward Field's demolition. 

Earlier in the day, they had both watched the final day of the 2018 NCAA Division 1 Championships. They were in the stands when USC's Kendell Ellis chased down Purdue's Jahneya Mitchell for one of the most jaw-dropping 4x400 finishes in collegiate history. 

When it was over, Christian Brahe-Pedersen and his daughter made their way over to the northeast corner of the track, where volunteers doled out slices of pizza on paper plates to a gathered crowd taking in the view of the iconic venue one final time.

"It was a big crowd of people, we were all standing elbow to elbow," Brahe-Pedersen recalled. "And at some point, I lost sight of Mia. I didn't see her anywhere and started looking around."

After a few puzzled moments, the father spotted his daughter standing on the track with her eyes looking down at the ground. She was staring at something.

Christian approached her. 

"Hey, what's going on?" he asked.

Mia's eyes remained fixed at the white line in front of her shoes. 

"Some day," she said. "I'm going to come back and be standing right here."

Right there. At the start of the 200 meters. Lane 4. At Hayward Field. 

But, the 2018 NCAA Championships wasn't the final act at the old Hayward Field. 

The TrackTown Youth League meet was. And metaphorically, as one era was about to pass, the seeds were planted for something new.

Hours after Ellis' heroics and the departure of the collegiate stars, and after the pizza, there was Brahe-Pedersen and Beckmon, in lanes 3 and 5, for the 11-12 Girls 100 meters. 

Brahe-Pedersen pulled it out over Beckmon, with no fanfare whatsoever, 13.54 seconds to 13.56. 

On Friday and Saturday at the OSAA Track and Field Championships at Hayward Field, Brahe-Pedersen and Beckmon are two of the headliners, national leaders in their respective events, and motivated to go just a little bit faster, jump a little bit farther. 

Brahe-Pedersen, a junior at Lake Oswego, and Beckmon, a senior at Oregon City, have transcended ordinary high school track and field. 

They are on the verge of national high school records in events where Oregonians rarely, if ever, scratch the surface of the U.S. top 10 list. 

But in 2023, that's the situation. 

"You see one person do something really great and then you kind of want to do that too," Beckmon said. "It's a big support thing. It's great because you don't really have a lot of close friends who are also amazing (at sports) to motivate you. So, we have each other to push each other.

"I'm so proud of both of us."

Brahe-Pedersen has run a wind-legal 11.08 seconds in the 100 meters and 22.61 in the 200 meters and believes she can run faster. She made the finals of the 100 and 200 at the World U20 Championships last summer in Cali, Colombia as a 16-year old. She was seventh in the 100 and fourth in the 200 and inexplicably left off the relay team. 

A strong case could be made that she is the most compelling figure in high school track and field in Oregon since Steve Prefontaine. Perhaps even more so. 

Beckmon has two Nike Outdoor National long jump titles, but this spring she has taken her performance to a higher level. She has lowered her 200-meter best from 23.91 to 23.11, her 100 from 11.81 to 11.53. 

On April 28, at the Nike/Jesuit Twilight Relays, she jumped 22 feet, 4 inches (6.81m) for the second-longest mark in prep history. On the night she did it, the mark was the third-best in the world (all conditions). 

That jump, without a doubt, is one of the most impressive achievements in Oregon track and field history – in the realm of Joni Huntley's first 6-foot high jump clearance and American record at Sheridan High in 1974. 

Beckmon enters the weekend looking forward to six long jump attempts on the Hayward Field runway and Kate Hall's 2015 national record of 22-5 (6.83m) a realistic target. 

Brahe-Pedersen knows she has time on her side in order to chase after the 100-meter record of 10.94 by Briana Williams and the 200-meter record of 22.11 by Allyson Felix. Even if she comes up a bit short this year, she still has another year, and the potential of an Olympic Trials debut in 2024. 

The friendship began after Christian Brahe-Pedersen found a way to reach Vanessa Beckmon, Sophia's mother, and invite Sophia to join Step Ur Game Up, a track club that Mia had already joined.

By then, the summer of 2019, Mia was coming out of seventh grade and Sophia was leaving eighth grade (they are only separated in age by three months). 

"I remember my first day of SGU. That was the first track club I had ever been at," Sophia said. "The first day I there I was in the hallway and (Mia) walked by and we kind of just waved and I think a couple of days after that we finally started talking."

Sophia was shy and reserved. Mia was boisterous and full of energy. They hit it off, found that they were kindred spirits when it came to uncommon focus and desire to be good at something, and their energies balanced one another. 

"At first it was a little bit awkward, like 'Oh, I know you, we've raced against each other. We're not supposed to be friends, nobody's going to think we're supposed to be friends,'" Mia said. "She used to be really, really quiet and I used to be really loud. So, we kind of met in the middle.

"She calmed me down and I hyped her up."

What transpired after that helps to explain the elite level of performance that both of them are displaying now. 

Hashim Hall, who was the co-owner and coach of the Step Ur Game Up club, and now the head of The Inner Circle Track Club, watched the friendship grow. 

"We spend a great deal of time in the weight room and it's a year-round program," Hall explained. "I can't tell you how many times one went to the other and said 'You can do it' when they were struggling with the last rep. Or, one finishes a workout and is laying on the ground, and the other one is there to encourages her to get back up."

Sophia and Mia roomed together on travel trips. Yelled for and supported one another at meets. Shared the experiences of improving and winning. 

Mia seemed destined to be a great 400-meter runner, but she wanted to race the 100 and 200 instead. 

Hall issued her a challenge in that summer of 2019.

"You are going to have to show why the 100 and 200 are the races for you," he said. "It's time to go into the 11s (in the 100 meters) and get down under 25 (in the 200). Let's plan for that."

At the 2019 USATF Junior Olympics, Brahe-Pedersen was on the verge of both goals. She ran 12.32 for a new PR in the first round and had more in the tank. She ran 25.00w in the 200, again in the prelims. 

But in the semifinal of the 100, Brahe-Pedersen felt a pain in her hip and limped through the finish line. Her season was prematurely over. 

She went home to a Physical Therapy appointment and began a laborious strength and rehabilitation program to increase the strength in her hips. 

In the one meet of her 2020 indoor season, at the Boise Indoor, she ran 7.74 to win the 60 meters, 24.85 to win the 200 and 57.93 to win the 400. In a few spare opportunities in the 2020 outdoor season, as an eighth-grader, she ran new PRs of 11.92 and 24.82. 

Meanwhile, Beckmon had a personal best in the long jump of 14-8 (4.47m) when she joined SGU in the early summer of 2019. By the end of July, she was a Junior Olympics national champion with a new best of 18-1.25 (5.52m). 

In 2021, as an Oregon City sophomore, Beckmon started jumping beyond 19 feet. At the Outdoor Nationals presented by Nike, she jumped beyond her expectations and won the title with 19-10.25 (6.05m).

In 2022, Beckmon continued to get taller and stronger. She won her second national high school title with 20-8 (6.30m). 

In March of this year, Brahe-Pedersen and Beckmon finished 1-2 in the 200 meters at Nike Indoor Nationals in New York City. Brahe-Pedersen also won the 60-meter dash. Beckmon finished second in the long jump with her shortest mark of the season.  

When the outdoor season began, they were separated by a few miles – Oregon City and Lake Oswego are on opposite sides of the Willamette River – but connected in spirit. 

"Part of the reason we got along so well early on, is because we were so focused," Brahe-Pedersen said. "Back in middle school, finding athletes that are super razor-focused isn't super common, so when we found each other, where we could focus on ourselves but also motivating each other, it was a really special connection."

This week at Hayward Field, they will represent their schools together for the final time and continue to push and pull one another to reach their goals. (Beckmon is off to the University of Illinois in the fall, where she will be coached by Petros Kyprianou). 

"She's very level-headed," Mia said of Sophia's steadying influence. "I always get freaked out about everything and she's the one to say to me 'Get out of your head and do what you do best.' She keeps me balanced."

Sophia admires Mia's desire to put in the work and keep striving for better results. 

"Seeing how hard she works, it's so inspiring. It's on a completely different level. She trains so hard and works her butt off and she does everything she can to be the best," Sophia said. "I'm so thankful for her that she's like that because that makes me want to be so much better."