Cami Chapus Saves Her Best Race for Last

What a year it's been on the track for Palisadian Cami Chapus. 

She turned 17 just three weeks ago and still has another year of high school, yet already Chapus is making international headlines. 

Chapus won the 1,600-meter race at the CIF state finals meet, anchored Harvard-Westlake's distance medley relay team that shattered the national high school record at the New Balance Outdoor Nationals in North Carolina and she clocked the fastest girls outdoor prep mile time this year at the adidas Dream Mile in New York.

She saved her grandest performance, however, for Saturday evening in Lille, France, where she finished fifth in the 1,500-meter finals at the IAAF Track & Field World Youth Championships in a personal-best four minutes, 17.12 seconds--the fastest time this year by an American high school female. 

"I think I'm learning how to run the race," said Chapus, who had tried the distance in competition only twice before arriving in France.  

Not only is Chapus a fast runner, she's a quick learner. Saturday's effort was 5.57 seconds faster than her preliminary time three days earlier when she placed sixth in her heat to qualify for the finals. In fact, she has lowered her 1,500 time with each successive race.

Fellow American Hannah Meier of Michigan's Grosse Pointe South High in Michigan finished ninth out of 12 runners in Saturday's race with a time of 4:20.65. Meier beat Chapus by 69 hundredths of a second at the World Youth Trials in Myrtle Beach, SC, but finished more than three and a half seconds behind Chapus on Saturday.

Top qualifier Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon of Kenya took first place in Saturday's race in a meet-record 4:09.48 at Stadium Lille-Métropole in northern France.

Chapus' time is the best by a United States female in the history of the World Youth Championships--12 hundredths of a second better than San Luis Obispo Mission Prep's Jordan Hasay ran to take second in 2007.

So how did her trip to Europe go? So well that Chapus didn't even have to replace her cell phone, which she'd accidentally dropped in a bucket of ice following her qualifying race Wednesday. She put it in rice to dry it out and sure enough it worked. 

Chapus and her US teammates flew back from France Monday and will stay overnight in Myrtle Beach, SC, before dispersing to their respective states Tuesday.

No doubt, Chapus will have plenty to tell her friends and family when she arrives home in Pacific Palisades. 

Click here for complete results of Saturday's 1,500-meter final.