Anne O'Brien (athlete)

Anne Vrana was born in Schenectady, New York, to a Hungarian immigrant family.[1][3]^:1 The family moved to California when she was young, and she took up running seriously as a student at Fremont High School in Los Angeles.[3]^:2 She joined the Pasadena Athletic Club, which had a women's track and field team.[3]^:4 At the 1927 AAU championships, her first significant meet, she placed second in the long jump and ran on the winning 4 × 110 yard relay team; she false started in the 100 meters, which she had considered her best event.[4]^:118,149 In her early years Vrana copied Charley Paddock's jump finish in her races; she dropped the style later in her career.[3]^:5

Vrana placed third in the 100 meters at the 1928 United States Olympic Trials, qualifying for the Summer Olympics in Amsterdam.[5]^:69 At the Olympics she placed third in her heat and was eliminated.[1] Vrana married Howard O'Brien, a fellow Fremont High track athlete, in 1930; subsequently, she competed as Anne O'Brien.[4]^:150 O'Brien took up the 80-meter hurdles before the next Olympics, prompted by losses to local rival Evelyn Furtsch in flat races.[3]^:12 In June 1932 she ran the hurdles in 11.8 at a regional tryout meet in Pasadena; the time equaled Marjorie Clark's world record from the previous year.[6]^:282

O'Brien entered the 1932 Olympic Trials as the national leader in the 80-meter hurdles, ahead of the eventual Olympic top two Babe Didrikson and Evelyne Hall.[5]^:77 In the Trials heats O'Brien fell at the fourth hurdle, failed to finish and was eliminated.[4]^:150[5]^:77 Due to the cuts and abrasions she received in her fall she was given a tetanus shot, which made her ill; she was forced to withdraw from the semi-finals of her other event, the flat 100 meters.[4]^:150 She was named to the American Olympic team as an alternate in the hurdles, but did not get the opportunity to compete.[4]^:150

O'Brien gave birth to a daughter in 1934, but continued competing; she won the 80-meter hurdles at the 1936 Trials, qualifying for her second Olympic Games.[4]^:150[5]^:86 At the Olympics in Berlin she placed second in her heat and fourth in her semi-final; she narrowly missed qualifying for the final.[1][3]^:17

O'Brien's athletic career tapered off after 1936, though she continued competing in minor meets into her forties.[3]^:21–22 She died in Tustin, California in July 2007, aged 95.[1]