The High School Sprint Phenom Who Beat Her Prom Date

The fans packed into the high school track meet stands stared at the start line. The discus throwers paused. And the sprinter everyone was watching, a 17-year-old girl, burst from the starting blocks, strided neck-and-neck with her competitors, then surged across the finish line ahead of them all—including four boys.

The rare mixed-gender 100-meter race, at the Summit Invitational on May 6 in Bend., Ore., was built just for Mia Brahe-Pedersen. That’s because the junior at Lake Oswego (Ore.) High School has had an increasingly hard time finding decent competition.