Laura Barre, 38, may be embarrassed by all the hoopla. She even feels guilty about leaving her work and family for 10 days in France. But so what. Laura is an inspiration to many, and a world champion in the W35 hurdles (here’s the video) and relay at Clermont-Ferrand. Her local paper had this great writeup, headlined “From France, With Gold: Laura Barre Displays the Midas Touch.” Wish we all got such great hometown recognition. “She ROCKED it in France!” wrote her friend and former college rival Ruthlyn V. Greenfield-Webster. “And I’m EXTREMELY proud of her.” As we all are. Welcome home, champ!

Here’s the story (with a better photo at the end):

From France,With Gold
Laura Barre Displays the Midas Touch
By Greg Fennell
Valley News Staff Writer
Lebanon — Baguettes? Croissants? Brie? United States Customs wouldn’t have let West Lebanon’s Laura Barre bring any of those consumables back from France last night.
World-class track athletes, on the other hand, probably want nothing to do with starches or carbs. They’re all about the kind of hardware Barre added last week to a growing collection.
As her husband, two children and about a dozen people associated with the Lebanon High track and field program discovered last night, Barre has a taste for gold and silver and bronze, too. The small throng which included some of the Raiders she coaches, greeted Barre upon her return from the third World Indoors Masters Athletics Championships in south-central France, where the fourth-year Lebanon assistant track coach earned four medals, including two golds, in her first world-level competition.
Competing in the women’s 35-to-39 age group, Barre surprised herself with a bronze in the 60-meter dash early in the meet, then kept upping the ante as the week went on. She added a silver in the long jump and a gold in the 60 hurdles, capping her meet with a team gold in the 4-by-200 relay.
“I don’t view it as sacrifice; the sacrifices come from my family,” Barre said during the impromptu reception at the Dartmouth Coach bus terminal in Lebanon. “I’m not home for 10 days. A lot of times schedules are juggled to allow me the time to train. Without the support of my family, I wouldn’t be able to do it, truly.
“And for me, it’s a joy, a true joy. I don’t ever see sacrifice in it.”
The meet stretched from March 17 through Saturday in Clermont-Ferrand, a city of approximately 140,00 people situated about 200 miles south of Paris. It brought together some 4,000 masters athletes (defined as age 35 and older) and provided the 38-year-old Barre some of the most significant competition she’s faced since getting into masters track and field a few years ago.
Barre credited a friend and former college rival from New York, Ruthlyn Greenfield-Margerum, with planting the seeds of the world indoors in her head. Once Ivy League competitors — Barre at Cornell, Greenfield-Margerum at Penn — the two joined a United States contingent in France that came home with 86 total medals, including 44 golds (not including relays).
“It’s been great; we’re really happy for her,” said Barre’s husband, Michael. “We’ve been so anxious for her, checking the results every morning, waiting to see if there’s a delay in posting. It’s been really exciting.”
Barre committed to the French championship last summer, doing her outdoor training on the Lebanon High oval and working indoors at Leverone Field House with Dartmouth track and field coaches Carl Wallin and Gordon Spaeth, among others. The world meet started off well, and only got better as the week progressed.
Barre usually uses the 60-meter dash as training for her true specialties, hurdling and the long jump. However, her semifinal on the meet’s first day revealed the potential of earning a bronze; Barre did just that one day later, nipping France’s Florence Le Gal for third place to pick up the first of her medals.
“It was a battle, to the point that I saw the photo finish,” Barre said. “I won it on the lean. (We) had the exact same time (8.20 seconds). ? The shoulders have to go across first. Her foot was across the line, but her shoulders were back.”
After an off day, Barre was back on the podium in Thursday’s long jump, using a leap of 5.43 meters (a shade less than 18 feet) to take second behind Russia’s Natalia Menshenina. If those results were a surprise to Barre, Friday’s win in the 60-meter hurdles was the kicker: Her time of 9.56 seconds brought the gold by just a tenth of a second over Amanda Wale of Great Britain-Northern Ireland.
“I false-started,” Barre confessed. “I made sure that didn’t happen a second time. When the race went on and I got to that fourth hurdle, I realized if I could push through.”
Barre completed the meet on Saturday by running the third leg in the United States’ winning effort in the women’s 35-to-39 finals of the 800-meter relay. “I don’t know if she told you, but she ran down (the first- and second-place runners) in the third leg to take the lead,” Michael Barre said. “She said it was really fun hearing the announcer yelling of course, in French.”
Back home, Lebanon High track and field coach Andrew Gamble kept friends and Raiders alike informed on Barre’s exploits. About 100 people received regular e-mail updates.
A social studies teacher at Lebanon, Gamble also patrolled the school and whispered the word into the ears of Barre’s charges each time their coach added to her medal collection.
In fact, Barre’s successes in France seem a case of practicing what she’s been preaching with the Raiders.
She’s in her fourth season at Lebanon, and Barre’s athletes have recorded seven New Hampshire Class I outdoor or Class IMS indoor state title wins in the long jump and triple jump since 2006.
Not to be outdone, Barre has twice won indoor nationals and outdoor nationals in the long jump, and now has four medals from the worlds to add to her collection.
“We’re lucky to get her once or twice a week,” Gamble said.
“The nice thing is when we go to meets, I don’t have to go to the long jump area and stay there. I can be in other places. She’ll let me know what’s going on and where things are. It’s been great.”
Once the bus stopped last night and she disembarked, the beaming Barre’s two children, 10-year-old son, A.J., and 6-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, were the first to greet her.
Within seconds, both were admiring their mother’s newest medals. Michael’s biggest concern may have been determining their future home.
“There are so many,” he said, “that I’m not sure which is for which event anymore.”
It’s a nice problem to have, a lot better, and maybe easier, than busting brie through customs.

Coach Gamble’s updates on Laura in France are posted here, BTW. (Look near the bottom).
Caption From the original site:
Lebanon High School assistant track coach Laura Barre puts on her medals last night for a group of supporters gathered at the Dartmouth Coach terminal in Lebanon to welcome her as she returned from France following last week’s World Masters Indoor Track and Field Championships.
Valley News photo by Jason Johns: