WVU Sports Hall of Fame
Clara Grandt earned four All-America honors in three different sports during her cross country and track career from 2005-10.
Grandt became the third female WVU runner to earn three All-America honors in three sports in the same season.
The West Union, West Virginia, native started her senior season by earning her first career All-America honor in cross country when she led the Mountaineers to a sixth-place finish at the 2009 NCAA Cross Country Championships and was the first Mountaineer runner to cross the finish line in 13th place.
Then, at the 2010 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships, Grandt finished 11th in the 5,000-meter run to earn All-America honors. She capped her WVU career at the 2010 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships with her fourth career All-America honor, finishing fourth in the 10,000-meter run.
Grandt earned her first All-America citation and became WVU’s 24th track and field All-American when she finished fourth in the 10,000-meter run at the 2009 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
She opened her WVU career with the Mountaineer cross country team by winning the 2006 WVU Open in her first collegiate race. Grandt began the 2007 track season with a win in the mile run at the Holiday Classic. She helped WVU win the 2007 Big East Cross Country Championships by finishing eighth overall and was the second WVU finisher in sixth place at the 2007 NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional.
Grandt was named to the USA Cross Country team in 2009 and captured first-place honors at the NACAC Cross Country Championships. She set a new meet record in the 10K at the 2008 ECAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships. Grandt took eighth place with a time of 28:22 at the 2008 United States World Cross Country Trials.
In 2009, Grandt set the WVU school record in the 10,000 meters with a time of 33:16.96. She won the 2009 Big East Championship in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 16:07.55.
In 2010, she won the Big East Championship in the 10,000 meters with a time of 33:31.80, and she finished in first place (34.29) in the 10K at the NCAA Regionals in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Grandt was a three-time selection to the NCAA All Mid-Atlantic Region and a three-time selection to the All-Big East Team. She was the 2009 NCAA Mid-Atlantic Region Track Athlete of the Year.
Since the conclusion of her WVU career, Grandt is a three-time U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier in the marathon (2012, 2016 and 2020) and was a member of the USA Half-Marathon Championship team in 2014. In the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials, she placed seventh and served as an alternate for the United States that year. She has won the Pittsburgh Marathon twice (2014 and 2015) and was the first American to finish at the 2013 Chicago Marathon, placing fifth overall in 2014. That year, she became the first American woman to win the Pittsburgh Marathon since 2009.
Grandt starred at Doddridge County High, where she holds the state Class A record in the 1,600 meters and 3,200 meters.
Grandt graduated from WVU with a bachelor’s degree in exercise physiology and a master’s degree in sport management. She is currently pursuing a second master’s degree from WVU in athletic and sport education while serving as a graduate assistant for the WVU cross country and track and field teams. In addition, Grandt owns her own private coaching business, while running as a professional for Mizuno and Saucony for seven years and working at Healthworks in aquatic therapy.
She is married to Jason Santucci.
