June 13, 2024
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My guest for today’s episode is Shane Cohen. The University of Virginia star stole the show on the final day of the NCAA Championships with a crazy kick in the 800 meters. Cohen went from last to first in the final 100 meters, clocking a personal best of 1:44.97.
Cohen’s journey is nothing short of inspirational. Just a year ago, he was virtually unknown, running for Division II University of Tampa and struggling to regain his form after a stress fracture in his femur. Despite a personal best of 1:48, he never broke 1:53 in six 800-meter races last spring. With results like these, Division I interest for his fifth year wasn’t extreme. But University of Virginia coaches Vin Lananna and Trevor Dunbar saw something special in Cohen’s kick and decided to take a chance on him.
Throughout the 2024 season, Cohen showed remarkable improvement, running 1:47 in April and third at the ACCs with a 1:46 in May. He ran 1:45 at regionals. Even after these impressive times, he was still largely overlooked heading into the NCAA Championships. That all changed during the prelims, where Cohen showcased an insane burst of speed, going from last to first in the final straight. That video caught my attention and some of the track internet community.
In the final, Cohen replicated his prelims strategy and ran close to even splits and finishing in 1:44.97. His racing style drew comparisons to Robby Andrews, who won the 2011 NCAA 800 title in similar fashion for the same school. Although Cohen was only ten years old during Andrews’ iconic race, he now finds himself following in those legendary footsteps.
With the Olympic Trials just around the corner, Shane Cohen’s ability to close the gap in the final stretch makes him a formidable contender. Six Americans have run faster than him, but his phenomenal closing speed could make all the difference. Like I said a few months ago in my conversation with Texas A&M’s Sam Whitmarsh (who finished second at NCAAs), there’s a strong tradition of college athletes making the US team for the World Championships or the Olympics in the 800 meters and Cohen looks like he could be one of the guys to carry that on. Shane Cohen’s journey from underdog to champion is far from over, and his story is one that has many of us captivated.
Elijah Agurs / @eavzls
The following interview excerpt has been edited lightly for clarity. You can listen to the full interview with Shane Cohen on the CITIUS MAG Podcast – available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows.
CITIUS MAG: I'm joined by the 2024 NCAA 800 meter champion, Shane Cohen. Has the title settled in yet? You've had a couple days to ride the high.
Shane Cohen: Definitely not yet. It's super surreal. It's one of those things that you definitely believe you could do. You've been seeing all the videos in the last few years watching everyone in Division 1 get these NCAA championships and then it's obviously surreal that now I have it. I still can't believe and probably won't for a little bit, but it’s back to business.
CITIUS MAG: The race has blown up all over Twitter and YouTube. You went from last to first over the final 100m to win in a really strong PR of 1:44.97. How many times have you gone back to rewatch the race?
Shane Cohen: I've watched the whole video probably only two or three times, but I'm really big with seeing my friends and coaches and everything. A lot of them have videos of them watching the races, whether it's them at a bar or them having a house watch party for me. Pretty much all my friends watching it from different angles, them screaming and yelling wherever the location they were at. So I've watched the last 150m probably 50 to 60 times at this point. Like I said, it's still super surreal. It's one of those things that I'll probably never forget. Just unreal.
CITIUS MAG: If we would have told you last April that you'd be a 1:44 guy – a year and two months ago – would you have believed it?
Shane Cohen: It's super surreal. It's one of those things — I know I can put the pieces together. Obviously the progression, I’m getting better every year. It's just a matter of stacking up the mileage and getting adjusted to the mileage. Even for cross country, I was dropping a minute every year. Now I know I can put the pieces together. Unlike a lot of these high school recruits, I was so late to the game because I barely ran in high school. So I think that's really what I was able to show off the most in college. College was my high school. That's when I really started putting the pieces together, running 65 miles [per week]. It’s honestly still unbelievable. I know I can go out and be competitive with all these guys. Seeing the time is really like, ‘This is fast. This is getting very elite.’”
CITIUS MAG: What is the best piece of advice a coach has ever given you and who was it?
Shane Cohen: I'm going with one of my high school coaches. I think it really stems back that far. When I think about advice I've gotten, this one just kind of stands out. Our coach was an older guy and he had this thing – he just said, ‘Put your hand in the fire…” It's just, ‘Get after it.’ You can't be scared. There's no time to think in these races, especially for me obviously being middle distance. It's not like a 5K where I have all the time in the world.
I just think, ‘Put your hand in the fire’ is one of those things where it's like, you never know what you can do until you're going out and doing it. You have no shot at running fast unless you give yourself an opportunity to run fast. If you go out in a race slow, how are you gonna run fast if you’re already not going out hard enough? I think that’s just kind of given me the confidence that, ‘You can do it.’ I think that's the biggest thing that’s really stuck with me clearly eight years later.
CITIUS MAG: Hoppel is doing his thing and looking great so far this season. But behind him, it seems like the Olympic spots could be anyone's for the taking. Both you and Sam Whitmarsh are the top college guys right now, who I think could be those disruptors. What are you thinking ahead of the Olympic trials?
Shane Cohen: It was NCAAs, worry about that, and then we'll worry about the Trials. Not saying the Trials are just icing on the cake, but now when I'm running, it's more like, ‘I can do this. I can make this team.’ Not a scary part of the whole thing, but I think the thing that’s keeping me confident about it is both of my races I even-split. I think I definitely can go out a second faster and still come back just as hard, just getting into that race and trusting myself. So that definitely gives me confidence that I can hopefully disrupt it a little bit…
I think it's going to be super exciting to see how it plays out at the Trials. Obviously we're all still super fit right now. It's been a long season for us, so it's super cool that we're still on the trajectory of going up. We're all still getting faster right now. So it’s going back to the drawing board again, back to the basics for the next two or three weeks. Hopefully one of us can make a statement to make that team.
CITIUS MAG: The fact that you're in the last half of the Trials makes the wait so much longer. Can you speak to the mental side of that? Reset does feel important because it's, you know, you do have, you know, all of this emotion, you know, post this race that. Yeah, I guess, like it would be hard to race like if you said the trial started in two days for you.
Shane Cohen: I think the biggest thing I'm happy about being in the second half and not in the first half is that I actually get to watch my teammates race. Being in the 800m, we always run an hour or two hours after Wes [Porter] and Gary [Martin] in the 1500m and all the steeple guys, so I only get to see the YouTube videos of them. I got to see Wes run in the final – I didn’t cut my warm up short, but I was out on the track, so I stayed and watched before I even warmed up. I was cutting it really close but I'm just so team oriented and seeing him come in sixth when he was ranked 30th gave me that confidence…
Obviously running a week earlier would be nice. Obviously I'm hot right now. Things are fresh, things are still happening. But the reset is going to be nice. It's going to be nice to get a good three weeks of training in and get another hard workout in.”
Time Stamps:
- 5:56 - Reflecting on his 800m victory at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
- 6:35 - How he celebrated winning the 800m NCAA title.
- 8:38 - Breaking down the race + more on his season leading into the NCAA final.
- 10:30 - Details on his race strategy.
- 13:44 - Why he approaches training from more of a strength than speed perspective.
- 15:22 - His story of joining the University of Tampa track team as a walk-on athlete.
- 19:42 - What he learned during his time as an athlete at Tampa.
- 21:15 - Why he decided to transfer from Tampa to the University of Virginia.
- 29:53 - The reception he got after his race from the media + pros.
- 32:13 - Going 1-2 with Sam Whitmarsh.
- 34:24 - How he turns on his competitive switch.
- 37:27 - How he’s pivoting towards the Olympic Trials.
- 50:21 - The best piece of advice a coach has given him.
- 52:02 - Prospects for turning pro.
Chris Chavez
Chris Chavez launched CITIUS MAG in 2016 as a passion project while working full-time for Sports Illustrated. He covered the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and grew his humble blog into a multi-pronged media company. He completed all six World Marathon Majors and is an aspiring sub-five-minute miler.
