Grace Stark’s Story From A Devastating Leg Injury To Now Becoming A World Championship Bronze Medalist

The CITIUS MAG Podcast | A Running + Track and Field Show

CITIUS MAG

Running, Sports

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A year ago in Paris, Grace Stark made her Olympic debut and finished fifth in the 100-meter hurdles. It was a taste of the big stage and a “delayed but not denied” moment, as she put it. In Tokyo, she delivered on that promise.

Stark stormed to a bronze at the 2025 World Championships with a time of 12.34 seconds. In one of the deepest fields in championship history — featuring Olympic champion Masai Russell, world record holder Tobi Amusan and reigning champ Danielle Williams — Stark emerged as the only American to reach the podium and just edged out Russell to claim Team USA’s lone medal of the night.

For Stark, the medal is proof of resilience. After a devastating injury at Florida nearly ended her career, she fought her way back to be among the world’s best. Now, she’s a global medalist and her story may just be beginning.

She joined Chris Chavez and Anderson Emerole at the CITIUS MAG HQ to talk about it all.

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Hosts: Chris Chavez | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@chris_j_chavez on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ + Anderson Emerole | @atkoeme on Instagram

Guest: Grace Stark | @grace_stark on Instagram

Produced by: Jasmine Fehr |⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠@jasminefehr on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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PRESENTED BY ASICS

For the third consecutive year, CITIUS MAG is proud to partner with ASICS for our global championship coverage. With their support, we’re able to bring you the best coverage of the 2025 World Athletics Championships. Support our sponsor and check out ASICS’s latest including the MegaBlast and SonicBlast. Shop at ASICS.com

Transcript

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0:30.3	All right.
0:30.8	Chris Shab is live here in Tokyo with Anderson Emerald,
0:34.0	and we are joined by World Championship bronze medalists, Grace Stark.
0:38.5	How's that sound, I guess? Like, it's been less than 48 hours, I guess, since it all happened.
0:45.5	And now that it's going to be attached to your name forever.
0:48.1	Yeah, it's still, you know, like shocking to hear. I'm just so happy to be here and get the bronze medal.
0:53.5	Yeah. Well, I wonder what it was like to
0:55.8	finally cross the line, because you've been working to get to this moment for a little bit. Like,
1:00.5	did you feel like an initial weight off your shoulder or just like, oh my gosh, like I'm,
1:04.3	I did it. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like Paris, you know, it was my first one. And then indoor was
1:09.6	really challenging, not coming away with the metal. So this one I wanted to leave here with at least a medal. So, you know, finally doing that, it was like a big weight off my shoulders. I heard you describe it as like the Denzel Washington meme. Yeah, that I'm leaving here for something. Yeah, the quote that he says. That's what I was feeling when I got to the start line. Like, I'm leaving here or something. This. This year in general, I guess like because so much of your story is tied to the injuries like in college.
	...

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