2022 Inductee
For an Iowa high school girl to qualify to the state Track and Field Championships in each one of her opportunities, which today is 16, is pretty darn special and several have done it. For that girl to score all 16 times is much less common. For that girl to finish no worse than 2nd at the state meet, in each her 16 attempts is even more rare.
Alex Gochenour, a 2011 graduate of Logan-Magnolia High School, is in a special class of those who have won 13 or more with the likes of Ashley Miller, Keri Siebrecht, Hannah Wilms, Faith Burt, Ellen Ries and Debbie Esser.
She helped her team to 2 state titles and 2 runner-up finishes. She holds Iowa’s All Time best in the 100 hurdles at 13.9.
She was also 13-time Drake Relays qualifier, 11-time medalist, and 5-time champion in high school.
At the age of 11 she got her first real taste of the Combined Events, winning the Pentathlon at the AAU National meet in Drake Stadium. In 2010 it was back to Drake for another national meet, the US Junior Championships, where she won the Heptathlon and went on to finish 10th at World’s. These initial experiences led to an impressive list of college and post collegiate accolades.
Alex spent her freshman year at LSU where she won a Penn Relays title on the Shuttle Hurdle Relay.
A 2016 graduate University of Arkansas, Alex was an All SEC performer in the Pentathlon and Heptathlon, a Texas Relays Heptathlon Champion, an 8 time NCAA qualifier and a 3 time first team and 3X second team All American. She is #3 on the Arkansas All Time lists in both the Pentathlon and Heptathlon.
She was a 2016 Olympic Trials qualifier in both the Heptathlon and the 100 hurdles, a 2-time member of the US Thorpe Cup team, winning the Heptathlon title in 2017, and qualified to compete in the Hypo-Meeting in Gotzis, Austria where are only world’s leading Combined Events performers are invited.
Alex came back to America’s Athletic Classic in 2017, as a post collegiate athlete, and won the Heptathlon. Little did she know at the time, that at the same Drake Relays, her future husband would win the Decathlon that same weekend.
She went on to finish 4th at the 2017 US Championships with her Heptathlon lifetime best of 6,129.
Alex now lives and trains in Ames. She is coached by her husband, former Clinton prep, Central College national champion and now Iowa State Assistant Coach, Kurtis Brondyke.
She is taking one last shot at making the US Team and hopefully a trip to Paris in ’24.