RIO DE JANEIRO – American middle distance runner Jenny Simpson sees only the track, an eight-lane 400-meter oval, whether in her hometown of Boulder, Colorado or at the Olympic Stadium here in Brazil. That sameness provides a comfort that she likens to the scene in the movie Hoosiers, when actor Gene Hackman, portraying a small-town basketball coach, shows his team that the basket in the big arena for the state finals is 10 feet high, just like in their own little gym back home, in order to quell their nerves. “I look at a track,” says Simpson, “and it’s home for me.
U.S.’s Jenny Simpson won't let half-empty Rio stadium dull historic Olympic moment
