How West Valley sprinter Lauren Matthew is leaving past frustrations behind in her race for gold in 2026
May 1—The final results from the 2025 and 2024 Washington state high school track and field results don't list Lauren Matthew as an individual champion. Even the color of the medals she has for finishing runner-up in the 2A 400-meter final the last two years don't match what Matthew believes she accomplished. The West Valley senior will always maintain she was the state champion the past two years.
She's proud to claim she was the top biological female finisher, second to Verónica Garcia, a transgender athlete from rival East Valley. Some would have thought Matthew would have discarded the medals after she refused to take the podium following the race. The story garnered national attention and Matthew gained support from U.
S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner and others.
"I do have the medals," said Matthew, who was congratulated by Baumgartner as the "rightful winner" during a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives last June. "If I threw them away it would be like a waste of my accomplishment. I still accomplished something.
So I'm not going to get rid of them. " It doesn't soften the impact of what she thought was taken from her, though. "It's not something I would have ever thought I would have ever experienced," Matthew explained.
Continue to the original source for the full article.