MONROE, Ga. — Javianne Oliver is still running off the energy and momentum from Tokyo 2020. She came home with a silver medal in the women's 4x100 meter relay. She is still reminiscing on her Olympic experience.
"I just feel like it never really died down," the track star said.
"From the trials through Tokyo, I go back to the pictures and it's always the same disbelief," she said.
The Monroe native is now chasing new goals. She is gearing up to compete in a World Championship track meet.
"It's not the Olympics," she said. "But it is still a big track event for us."
Oliver said this competition is all part of her training for hopefully another run in the next Olympic Games this time in Paris.
"I am working hard," she said. "I am going out there every day to reach another goal."
The one thing keeping her focused during training, she said, is her hometown of Monroe, Georgia.
"Some days I go back and look at pictures of when my hometown came together in a bar and it really helps," she said. "It really brings me back to the this is why I do it for."
The Winter Games are also inspiring her to keep pushing during training. She said it helps to see the athletes in Beijing chase their own Olympic dreams.
"Just to watch their training and a lot of them used to do track," she said. "I was like, well, that's interesting that you can go from one sport to a completely different one."
She said its the moments we don't always see on TV that make the Olympic experiences and achievements possible.
"What we do on the track is very small compared to what we do behind the scenes," she explained. "I am just in grind mode right now."