When the global COVID-19 pandemic shut down sports across the world and postponed the 2020 Olympics for a full year to 2021, it changed how Seamus Millett would finish school but not his athletic plans.
Millett, a 2016 Durango High School graduate, had missed his chance at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. The modern pentathlon athlete was focused on finishing a grueling engineering degree from Colorado School of Mines, and that had reduced his training time. Now, he’s focused on the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.
“The past year has been pretty busy with everything, and I have definitely had to cut back on some things,” he said. “Schoolwork has definitely taken the priority the past year. I may not have been able to train as much as I would have liked and my performance in the past year has suffered a little from it. I had to think a little more beyond just pentathlon.”
The modern pentathlon is an event that combines fencing, freestyle swimming, equestrian show jumping and laser-run, an event that combines pistol shooting and cross-country running. Millett, who was a four-year varsity swimmer and runner at DHS, was involved in the two-year process for Olympic qualification. A multi-time youth national champion and 2018 junior national champion, Millett placed fifth at last year’s senior national championships.
At the first Olympic qualifier, he finished fifth, and he would finish sixth in the second qualifier to miss his chance at Tokyo. The sport has been dominated by Colorado Springs’ Amro Elgeziry, who is 13 years older than Millett, who will celebrate his 21st birthday Saturday.
Millett, son of James Millett and Jennifer Thurston, is currently ranked sixth in the nation at the senior level but remains the top-ranked athlete in his age group.
“The process for Olympic qualification was a two-step process. The first being the national qualification which consisted of two events this winter that gave points to athletes to be on the national team,” Millett said. “Unfortunately, I did not make that team this year, so my qualification sort of stopped there. If I were to have made that team, then I would have been competing in the World Cup and other international events this spring trying to accumulate international ranking points that would have qualified me for the Games.”
Of course, those spring events have now been postponed by the new coronavirus. Millett was satisfied with the opportunity to spend the rest of the spring focused on finishing school.
Millett, who helped DHS win the 2015 boys cross-country state championship, will graduate from Mines this spring with a degree in civil engineering and a minor in engineering for community development. To finish school and still train, Millett had to step away from his part-time jobs.
“The biggest thing I learned about myself was a lot about my own limitations,” he said. “Through middle school and high school, I was always able to do everything I wanted and be successful. As I got into the later years of college and things got harder and I had more commitments, I had to learn to balance everything. I learned a lot about what my body and mind were able to do and had to develop a training plan that would help me be as competitive as possible while still having positive mental and physical health.”
Millett said he revived his passion for pentathlon. He learned to love competing and training for more than the final results.
This spring, he looked forward to spending more time with friends and partaking in events he missed out on during his earlier college years. Now, he’s back home in Durango finishing his schoolwork online.
The junior world championships scheduled for September will be a focus. He already has a job lined up for after graduation as an entry-level geotechnical engineer where he will be focused on the mitigation of geologic hazards such as landslides or rock falls.
Millett said he is looking forward to getting into a routine with work and training.
“The 2020, now 2021, Olympics have always been a goal of mine. Given my age and with the way my life was working out, it was not the main focus,” Millett said. “Paris 2024 has always seemed a little more tangible. I plan on making a big push for those Olympics, so I am nowhere near done with pentathlon.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
