The edict that Allison Wahrman had been dreading arrived Thursday afternoon while she was lifting weights.
A text from her track and field coach at Iowa informed Wahrman and her teammates that the NCAA would soon announce cancellations of all winter and spring sports in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
For the younger Hawkeyes, training for months with no payoff was devastating. For seniors like Wahrman whose college careers ended abruptly and without closure, it was something more.
“It was heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking,” she told Yahoo Sports. “I only started throwing two years ago, and I was just starting to develop into an elite athlete.