Gabriele Ivy Grunewald (''née'' Anderson; June 25, 1986 – June 11, 2019) was an American professional

middle-distance runner Middle-distance running events are track races longer than sprints, up to 3000 metres. The standard middle distances are the 800 metres, 1500 metres and mile run, although the 3000 metres may also be classified as a middle-distance event. The 1 ...

who competed in distances from

800 meters The 800 metres, or meters ( US spelling), is a common track running event. It is the shortest commonly run middle-distance running event. The 800 metres is run over two laps of an outdoor (400-metre) track and has been an Olympic event since th ...

5000 meters The 5000 metres or 5000-metre run is a common long-distance running event in track and field, approximately equivalent to or . It is one of the track events in the Olympic Games and the World Championships in Athletics, run over laps of a stand ...

. She represented the United States at the

2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships The 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics was the fifteenth edition of the international indoor track and field competition, organised by the IAAF. The event was held between 7–9 March 2014 at the Ergo Arena in Sopot, Poland. Prepar ...

and finished in ninth place in the 3000 meters. Grunewald was the national champion in the

3000 meters The 3000 metres or 3000-metre run is a track running event, also commonly known as the "3K" or "3K run", where 7.5 laps are run around an outdoor 400 m track, or 15 laps around a 200 m indoor track. It is debated whether the 3000m shoul ...

at the

2014 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships The 2014 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships was held at Albuquerque Convention Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Organised by USA Track and Field (USATF), the three-day competition took place February 21–23 in conjunction with the USA Ind ...

Early life

Grunewald was born in

Perham, Minnesota Perham ( ) is a city in Otter Tail County, Minnesota. The population was 3,512 at the time of the 2020 census. History Perham was platted in 1873, and named for Josiah Perham, first president of the Northern Pacific Railway. As the village gr ...

to Kim and Laura Anderson. She competed for the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

where she was national runner-up in the

1500 meters The 1500 metres or 1,500-metre run (typically pronounced 'fifteen-hundred metres') is the foremost middle distance track event in athletics. The distance has been contested at the Summer Olympics since 1896 and the World Championships in Athletic ...

at the 2010 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships.GABRIELE ANDERSON SECOND IN NCAA 1,500 METERS
. gophersports.com. Retrieved on June 12, 2010.

Professional career

Grunewald turned professional in 2010, signing a contract with

Brooks Sports Brooks Sports, Inc., also known as Brooks Running, is an American sports equipment company that designs and markets high-performance men's and women's sneakers, clothing, and accessories. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Brooks products are ...

. In 2011, she placed third

nationally A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by those ...

in the

mile run The mile run (1,760 yards or exactly 1,609.344 metres) is a middle-distance foot race. The history of the mile run event began in England, where it was used as a distance for gambling races. It survived track and field's switch to ...

both indoors and outdoors. Over 1500 m, she was fourth at the 2012 United States Olympic Trials missing the Olympic Team by one place. Grunewald placed 11th in the 1500 m final at 2013 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Grunewald was the 2014 USA Indoor 3000 m champion. She was briefly disqualified on appeal from

Jordan Hasay Jordan Melissa Hasay (born September 21, 1991) is an American distance runner. She grew up in Arroyo Grande, California, and attended Mission College Preparatory High School in San Luis Obispo. She was unanimously selected 2008 Girls High School A ...

’s coach

Alberto Salazar Alberto Salazar (born August 7, 1958) is an American former track coach and long-distance runner. Born in Cuba, Salazar immigrated to the United States as a child with his family, living in Connecticut and then in Wayland, Massachusetts, whe ...

that was based on contact Grunewald had with Hasay during the finals; however, Hasay later withdrew the appeal made on her behalf and Grunewald was reinstated as champion and awarded her

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

berth. She would finish 9th at the World Championships. Grunewald placed 13th in 1500 m final at

2015 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships The 2015 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships were held at Hayward Field, University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. Organized by USA Track and Field, the four-day competition took place June 25–28 and served as the national championships in ...

. Grunewald placed 3rd at 2016 USATF 1 Mile Road Championships and 12th in 1500 m final at 2016 United States Olympic Trials (track and field). In what would be her final professional race, Grunewald ran 4:31.18 and placed 28th in 1500 m semi-final at

2017 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships The 2017 USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships were held at Hornet Stadium on the campus of California State University, Sacramento in Sacramento, California. Organized by USA Track & Field, the four-day competition took place June 22–25 an ...

in 100-degree heat, in between chemotherapy treatments, and having had a fever just days before the race.

Personal life

In 2013, Gabriele married Justin Grunewald, an internal medicine physician whom she first met while they were both students at the

. In 2017, Brooks released ''Gabe'' (her nickname), a 26-minute

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

depicting her battle with cancer as well as her efforts to qualify for the 2017 World Championships. Grunewald had four siblings: three brothers (Ben, Caleb, and Zach) and a sister (Abigail); her sister was killed in a drunk-driving accident in August 2021, on her way to attending a women's soccer game in

Falcon Heights, Minnesota Falcon Heights is a suburb of Saint Paul and a city in Ramsey County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 5,321 at the 2010 census. It became a village in 1949 and a city in 1973. Falcon Heights is the home of the University of Minn ...

Illness and death

Grunewald was diagnosed with

adenoid cystic carcinoma Adenoid cystic carcinoma is a rare type of cancer that can exist in many different body sites. This tumor most often occurs in the salivary glands, but it can also be found in many anatomic sites, including the breast, lacrimal gland, lung, brai ...

, a rare type of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

, in 2009. Due to tumors, her salivary gland was removed in 2009 and her thyroid was removed two years later. She had surgery to remove a roughly five-by-six-inch cancerous tumor from her liver on August 26, 2016; a surgical oncologist performed a right hepatectomy to remove the tumor as well as the affected right lobe of her liver. In 2017, Grunewald suffered a

relapse In internal medicine, relapse or recidivism is a recurrence of a past (typically medical) condition. For example, multiple sclerosis and malaria often exhibit peaks of activity and sometimes very long periods of dormancy, followed by relapse or r ...

, with a

PET scan Positron emission tomography (PET) is a functional imaging technique that uses radioactive substances known as radiotracers to visualize and measure changes in metabolic processes, and in other physiological activities including blood flow, r ...

revealing 12 small, inoperable tumors in her liver. In 2018, she founded the organization Brave Like Gabe to fund research and raise awareness surrounding rare cancers through local races. Grunewald died in

palliative care Palliative care (derived from the Latin root , or 'to cloak') is an interdisciplinary medical caregiving approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex, and often terminal illnesses. Wit ...

on June 11, 2019, two weeks before her 33rd birthday.

Personal bests

References

External links

*
Gabriele Grunewald at athletebiz.usGabriele Grunewald at bringbackthemile.comBrave Like Gabe foundation website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grunewald, Gabriele 1986 births 2019 deaths People from Perham, Minnesota University of Minnesota alumni Sportspeople from Minnesota World Athletics Championships athletes for the United States American female long-distance runners American female middle-distance runners Deaths from cancer in Minnesota USA Indoor Track and Field Championships winners Deaths from adenoid cystic carcinoma 21st-century American women