Back home in Leeds, England, Jasmine Trott ’26 would watch the coverage of the NCAA Track and Field Championships and marvel at the runners. “I dreamed about being one of them,” she admits. “They were some of the best in the world.”
Her quest to compete at that highest level took her to the United States and the Bryant University track and field team, where she met Chloe Whiting ’26, a Randolph, New Jersey, native with her own ambitions.
“I wanted to win a lot of medals,” Whiting says with a smile.
Together, the duo would have the season of their lives last year and become the first women in Bryant’s Division I program history to qualify for the NCAA Track and Field Championships.
But before all that, the two became fast friends, roommates, and very nearly inseparable. It turns out they even share a birthday. They’re both Capricorns, Whiting notes: hard-working, loyal — and committed to achieving big goals.
They challenged each other, spurring one another to new records and victories. “You run faster when you run alongside someone who’s pushing you,” Whiting reflects.
“Without each other, neither of us would have made it as far as we have.”
They’re the fiercest competitors you’ll find on the track, Trott admits, and when they’re racing each other, no quarter is given. But that quickly falls away when the heat ends.
“Without each other, neither of us would have made it as far as we have,” says Whiting.
Supported by a Bryant team that has grown by leaps and bounds over their time at the university and with each other as their driving force, the pair spent the 2024-25 season outrunning even their own sense of possibility. “It felt like we were breaking a personal record every meet,” reflects Trott.
In the wake of team victories, new personal bests, shattered program records and, yes, medals, the pair traveled to Jacksonville, Florida, for the championships and represented Bryant on the national stage — Trott in the 10K and Whiting in the 5K.
But they’re not done yet. “When you’ve done something like this once, you can do it again,” says Trott. “And now you can aim even higher.”
They’re off to a predictable start. At the 2025 Shawn M. Nassaney XC Invitational, the pair blew away the competition in the 5K — and crossed the finish line together. It was just their first success in a cross country season where they were both named first-team All-Conference.
When Trott capped the semester by winning the 5K at the America East Championship — on her way to becoming the first Bulldog to compete at the NCAA XC Championships — Whiting was right behind her, both in the race and in support of her friend.