LARAMIE – The recruitment of Salma Elbadra could easily have been lost in translation.
 
Wyoming distance coach Scott Dahlberg heard about the talented prospect from Morocco from a coaching colleague, Georgia assistant Ryan Baily, who had a connection to Elbadra's coach in North Africa.
 
Dahlberg and Elbadra, whose native language is Arabic, communicated via WhatsApp, an instant messaging service which includes a built-in translation feature, as they collaborated to get her enrolled at UW and her visa approved to come to the United States.
 
Less than five months after leaving her home city of Inezgane on the Atlantic Ocean coast of Morocco and arriving at 7,220 feet during the dead of winter in Laramie, Elbadra will represent the Cowgirls at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships this week in Eugene, Ore.
 
"It's so cold," Elbadra said when asked if she experienced any culture shock when arriving on campus in January. "Moroccoo, in my city, it's humid and you don't have snow. Wyoming is so cold, but I like Wyoming, I like my team and my coach. It has helped me for training."
 
It didn't take Elbadra – who will compete in the semifinals of the women's 1,500 meters at 6:46 p.m. on Thursday – to make her mark at UW.
 
In her first race as a Cowgirl, Elbadra broke the school record in the indoor mile with a converted time of 4 minutes, 36.96 seconds on Jan. 13 at the Potts Invitational hosted by Colorado.
 
"That was a very competitive meet down in Boulder for her first race. It was negative-10 degrees in Boulder that day," Dahlberg said. "So, a lot of the routines and learning the nuance things of getting ready for a competition was a growth experience for both of us. But competitively you could tell right away she had a lot of valuable traits as far as how she put herself in the race and the way she finished it. It was very impressive."
 
Katelyn Mitchem, one of the greatest runners in program history, broke the indoor mile record in 2023 after the previous mark had stood since 1998.
 
At the Husky Classic on Feb. 10 in Seattle, Elbadra reset her record in the mile, finishing in 4:35.02, which was the fastest time in the Mountain West.
 
Elbadra won the mile (4:46.02) and finished second in the 3,000 with a school record time of 9:23.93 at the conference indoor championships on Feb. 24 in Albuquerque, N.M.
 
"We brought a coat with us," Dahlberg joked when asked about getting Elbadra acclimated to thrive during the indoor season shortly after her international flight touched down at DIA. "We talked about how it was going to be very different. We didn't hide that because there's no way you can.
 
"We do a lot of our faster sessions in the Indoor Practice Facility, so we just figured out how to get her workouts at the right pace and obviously learning her ability and how to push her. That went pretty well."
 
The outdoor season has been even more impressive for Elbadra. She set the UW standard in the 800 (2:05.87) on April 28 in Fort Collins at a meet hosted by Colorado State.
 
Then the 19-year-old freshman finished third in the 800 (2:06.40) and won the 1,500 (4:17.18) at the Mountain West Outdoor Championships on May 11 in Clovis, Calif.
 
"I felt good, but it's hot in California," Elbadra noted of the event hosted by Fresno State. "In Wyoming it's cold, in Fresno it's hot. But I felt good winning the 1,500 and the 800 getting third."
 
Elbadra qualified for the national championships after finishing seventh 1,500 final at the NCAA West Regional with a time of 4:15.18. Her time in the semifinals (4:14.03) is second in UW history behind Mitchem (4:13.25 in 2023).
 
"It's pretty special and you can see the potential is even greater," Dahlberg said of Elbadra's debut season with the Cowgirls. "There's a lot of things just being 19 years old that from a physiological standpoint she's going to get a long stronger, and on the aerobic side of things she's got a lot of growth. Her aerobic is very good but we can see things in workouts that there's still a lot more she can accomplish, which is very exciting."
 
When Elbadra arrived at UW she set lofty goals of winning the conference in the mile, winning the conference in the 1,500 and qualifying for the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
 
Nothing was lost in translation.
 
Now Elbadra, one of three freshmen in the women's 1,500 field of 24, will try to make another statement by qualifying for the final scheduled to start at 3:41 p.m. on Saturday at historic Hayward Field.
 
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