DeKalb Schools track and field alumni have been making news on the international stage in junior and Summer Olympics.

Morgan Snow, a 2011 Southwest DeKalb graduate won two gold medals at the Junior World Championship in Spain, now has her sights set on competing in the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Snow, a sophomore at the University of Texas, won two gold medals at the July 8-11 championship in Barcelona. She got an individual gold in the 100-meter hurdles and a team gold in the 4x100 relay.

The 19-year-old from Decatur is ranked No. 1 in the world in the junior 100-meter hurdles.

She said Wednesday that it felt really good to win gold.

“It gave me a boost because I really wanted to get on the podium individually and not just as a part of the relay team,” she said.

Snow was one of nine Georgia natives who participated in the World Championship but the only one from DeKalb County.

She started running track at 8 years old at New Birth’s Track and Field Club and says she was always an energetic kid.

“I would run around the house and climb trees, and my mom wanted me to put that energy to good use so she put me in track,” she said.

Snow is also the 2011 USA Junior Olympic Champion and the 2011 AAU Junior Olympic Champion in the 100-meter hurdles.

At Texas, she earned outdoor second-team All-America honors as a freshman in 2012 in the 100m hurdles and as a member of Texas’ 4x100m relay.

As a senior at Southwest DeKalb, she led her team to its fourth AAAA State Championship in five years as she recorded 28.5 total points, the third-highest score in all classes in Georgia.

In 2011, she won individual state titles in the triple jump and the 4x100-meter relay while finishing second in both the 100-meter and the 100-meter hurdles. She also won state championships in the 100-meter hurdles in 2010 and 2009 as well as the 4x100-meter relay in 2008, 2009 and 2011.

Snow is now focusing on making the 2016 Summer Olympic team.

“My initial goal is to win a gold medal,” she said.

Snow has been watching the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London and said she looks up to Dawn Harper, who just won the silver medal in the 100-meter hurdles.

“Dawn really inspires me,” she said. “She has a burst of energy from the start.”

DeeDee Trotter wins bronze

Former Cedar Grove High track standout DeeDee Trotter captured a bronze medal in London Summer Olympics on Aug. 5.

She placed third in the 400-meter dash with a time of 49.72 seconds. She finished just .15 seconds behind winner Sanya Richards-Ross.

It was her second Olympic medal. In the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, she captured gold as part of the United States 4x400 meters relay team.

While a senior at Cedar Grove High, Trotter won the Class AAA 200-meter gold in 2001.

The three-time Olympian (2004-2008-2012) battled through a knee injury in 2008 to qualify third on the U.S. team’s 400 entries but came up short of qualifying for the finals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

She signed with the University of Tennessee to compete in track and went on to win the NCAA 400-meter dash title in 2004 before leaving for her professional career. She would go on to become an Olympic finalist in the 2004 Games, finishing fifth.

Trotter won the 2007 U.S. title in the 400 with a stunning upset of this year’s Olympic gold medalist Richards-Ross. She is also a two-time world champion as part of the U.S. 4x400-meter relay team (2003, 2007).

Angelo Taylor falls short

Southwest DeKalb High alumnus and two-time gold medalist Angelo Taylor finished fifth in the 400-meter hurdles on Aug. 6.

Taylor ran a time of 48.25 and finished three spots behind his teammate Michael Tinsley, who won silver with a time of 47.91, and Felix Sanchez of the Dominican Republic, who won gold with a time of 47.63. 

Taylor, 33, was competing in his third Olympics. Had he won the gold in the 400-meter hurdles, he would have been the first person to do so, surpassing Edwin Moses (1976, 1984) and Glenn Davis (1956, 1960).

Taylor won gold in the 400 hurdles at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. He also won a gold medal with the 4x400m-relay team in the 2008 Olympics.