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THE DAUGHTER OF WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP RUNNERS, ELLERY LINCOLN, FOUND HER OWN PATH TO RUNNING
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2026 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved, used with permission
EUGENE, ORE. (03-Jul) — Since both of her parents competed in World Athletics Championships and won multiple NCAA and USATF titles, it’s hardly surprising that Ellery Lincoln would develop into an elite runner. Surely you would think that her parents, steeplechaser Daniel Lincoln and miler Sarah Schwald, pushed their 17-year-old from Portland, Ore., to take up the sport and train hard from a young age.
But you’d be wrong. Instead, Lincoln and Schwald wanted Ellery to find her own path to happiness, no matter what the direction.
“I joined this sport when I was seven or eight years old,” Schwald told Race Results Weekly in an interview yesterday ahead of this weekend’s Prefontaine Classic, the ninth stop of the 2026 Wanda Diamond League. “I was super-lucky that I was one of the few that made it all the way through the age-group system. I think I won my first national title when I was 10, set my first national record when I was 11, and I was able to kind of go through each level of the sport. But very few people make it out when they have success at the younger ages. I’ve just seen that play out over decades now. I think the data is pretty clear.”
Instead, Ellery –their only child– found running on her own.
“We encouraged her to be active, do whatever she liked and found interesting,” Schwald continued. “And she eventually found it. She tried so many different things. She tried a little bit of dance, a little bit of soccer, she tried a little bit of Taekwondo. She tried lots of different things. It was only in middle school that she kind of found running because that’s what her friends were doing. She decided to join them.”
Lincoln quickly became a force in Oregon high school running. As a ninth grader at Portland’s Lincoln High School — named after the ex-President —she achieved the state-leading 1500m time of 4:20.89 in 2024. This year, after finishing the 11th grade, she ran a very grown-up 4:07.99 to take second at the USA U20 Championships here last month and qualify for the World Athletics U20 Championships, which will take place here in August. Along the way, she ran 4:27.65 for the mile, surpassing her mother’s personal best of 4:33.43 by nearly six seconds. Her parents were behind her 100%, but Lincoln was pushing herself.
“The best thing they’ve done for me is hold me back,” said Lincoln. “Keep me doing things that are developmentally appropriate, like training-wise, and helping me kind of keeping the big picture in mind and not looking for short-term validation or success over a long and healthy career.”
Lincoln’s achievements earned her a place in tonight’s 1500m where she will be the youngest competitor in a field of 16 women, mostly made up of up-and-coming pros (like Juliette Whittaker, Gracie Morris and Wilma Nielsen), and top collegians (like Sadie Engelhardt of NC State and Salma Elbadra of South Carolina). It’s an impressive undercard to Saturday’s women’s mile, which will feature three-time Olympic gold medalist Faith Kipyegon.
“I wouldn’t say it was on my Bingo card going into the season, but the opportunity kind of came up and it’s something that I’m really excited about,” Lincoln said at a press conference yesterday. She continued: “A really big part of being successful in a race like this as the youngest one in the field is believing that I’m supposed to be here, talking myself out of it even before the gun goes off. So, just being confident, putting myself into it. I can have some awesome women pull the best out of me.”
Tonight’s competition is something of a bonus race for Lincoln. With so many end-of-season high school invitationals available to top athletes like her, Lincoln decided to focus on the USA U20 Championships to give her a shot at making the world team. With that accomplishment under her belt, and those championships not scheduled to begin until August 5, Lincoln feels the freedom to attack tonight’s race and let the card fall where it may.
PHOTOS: Ellery Lincoln with her mother, Sarah Schwald, at a downtown Eugene hotel in advance of the 2026 Prefontaine Classic (photos by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)
“I’ve just really been soaking up this weekend,” Lincoln explained. She continued: “I really learned that I can do big things, like breaking 4:30 in the mile. Like, that seemed really huge, and I didn’t know if I could do it. You know, you just like stack work over time and kind of realize that splits are just numbers. You get ready to do bigger things. It becomes less of a jump when you just kind of work your way.”
Schwald’s personal best for 1500m is 4:04.43, set in 2001 in Brussels. That was the year she reached the semifinals at the World Athletics Championships and competed at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in the 4-kilometer “short cross.” Lincoln did not say whether she was targeting her mother’s time, but it might be on her mind. Schwald’s mile time was a little softer, she admitted.
“I think she was running pre-Bring Back the Mile so she probably didn’t run a ton of full miles,” Lincoln said. “But I’m definitely very proud and bragged a little to her that night. I’m going to go for her 1500 next which is a little bit of a higher bar.”
Lincoln has one more year of high school competition before she begins her collegiate career here in Eugene at the University of Oregon under coaches Jerry Schumacher and Shalane Flanagan. Schwald explained that attending Oregon was purely her daughter’s choice, but she did say that her family was very close with Schumacher.
“He was the first (non-family) person to hold her as a baby when I brought her home from the hospital,” said Schwald.
PHOTOS: Ellery Lincoln with her mother, Sarah Schwald, at a downtown Eugene hotel in advance of the 2026 Prefontaine Classic (photos by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)