Olympian Eduardo Garcia Received Award at GTC May Meeting

GTC founder and current co-president Bill Keesling, Eduardo Garcia and GTC-ELITE coach Mike Caldwell

​Greenville Track Club founder and current co-president Bill Keesling presented Eduardo Garcia a commemorative plaque in honor of his participation in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games at the club's May meeting. Eduardo was also highlighted as the meeting's speaker and entertained the attendees with details about his amazing experience leading up to and during his time in Paris. 

He is currently rehabbing from his second hip surgery since undergoing an injury (one procedure on each hip to clean up previous damage to tissues). Eddie has been a member of Greenville Track Club-ELITE, sponsored by the GTC, since 2018. His future plans include regaining his competitive fitness and focus on the LA '28 Games. 

Eduardo recounting his Olympic experience to GTC attendees.

Eduardo "Eddie" Garcia joined GTC-ELITE in March of 2018, following his collegiate career at the University of Florida. As a Gator, his standout performance was winning the 2015 Southeastern Conference (SEC) championship at 10,000 meters and was a three-time NCAA qualifier at that distance. Holding dual citizenship status, Eddie choose to represent the United States Virgin Islands in international competition. He represented USVI at the Central America Games in Barranquilla, Columbia in 2018 and again in the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru. He placed 12th in the marathon in the latter competition with a time of 2:19:10, not far off his best of 2:18:50 at the 2019 Chevron Houston Marathon.. 

After relocating to Greenville he ran personal bests of 29:18.25 for 10,000m on the track (ISV national record), 29:57 for a road 10K, set the South Carolina State record in the Half Marathon with a time of 1:05:25, in addition to the aforementioned marathon time in Peru. He was ranked number one numerous times in the South Carolina Road Race Rankings. In December, 2020, Eddie once again set a new South Carolina resident State Record for the Half Marathon with a time of 1:04:32, knocking another 53 seconds off the standard. Garcia was named the USATF South Carolina Long Distance Runner of the Year for 2020. 
 
During his time with GTC-ELITE, Eduardo also improved his marathon time by 8 minutes and 11 seconds (2:25:17 down to 2:17:06) and his Half Marathon from 1:06:17 to 1:03:53--an improvement of two minutes and 23 seconds. 

Eddie has run US Virgin Island national records for the Marathon, Half Marathon, 15K, 10K. and 5K. His international accomplishments include  participation in the marathon at both the 2022 World Championships in Eugene and the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.