EUGENE, Ore. — For the past week, they’ve played the nation­al anthem one time a night at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials.

On Sat­ur­day, the song hap­pened to start while out­spo­ken activist Gwen Berry was stand­ing on the podi­um after receiv­ing her bronze medal in the ham­mer throw.

While the music played, Berry placed her left hand on her hip and fid­get­ed. She took a quar­ter turn, so she was fac­ing the stands, not the flag. Toward the end, she plucked up her black T‑shirt with the words “Activist Ath­lete” embla­zoned on the front, and draped it over her head.

“I feel like it was a set-up, and they did it on pur­pose,” Berry said of the tim­ing of the anthem. “I was pissed, to be honest.”

Berry’s reac­tion to the “Star-Span­gled Ban­ner” was as notable as any­thing on the track on a blaz­ing-hot Sat­ur­day, the sec­ond-to-last day at trials.

With tem­per­a­tures reach­ing 101 degrees (38 Cel­sius) on the field, Berry earned her spot, and her plat­form, at the Tokyo Olympics, grab­bing the third spot by a scant 2 inch­es over Janee Kassanavoid.

Berry has promised to use her posi­tion to keep rais­ing aware­ness about social injus­tices in her home country.

“My pur­pose and my mis­sion is big­ger than sports,” Berry said. “I’m here to rep­re­sent those … who died due to sys­temic racism. That’s the impor­tant part. That’s why I’m going. That’s why I’m here today.”

Among oth­ers who earned the right to wear red, white and blue in Tokyo were new­ly crowned cham­pi­ons Emi­ly Sis­son (10,000), Katie Nageotte (pole vault), Mag­gie Mal­one (javelin), Rai Ben­jamin (400 hur­dles), Brit­tney Reese (long jump) and Gab­by Thomas (200).

Thomas ran the 200 in 21.61 sec­onds — the third-best time ever, sur­passed only by Flo­rence Grif­fith-Joyn­er. Allyson Felix fin­ished fifth in that race, but already had her spot secured in the 400.

Berry found it to be no mat­ter of coin­ci­dence that she was front and cen­ter dur­ing the anthem. Unlike the Olympics, they don’t play anthems to accom­pa­ny medals cer­e­monies at the tri­als. But the ham­mer throw­ers received their awards just before the start of the evening ses­sion, which has been kick­ing off all week with a video­taped ren­di­tion of “The Star-Span­gled Banner.”

USA Track and Field spokes­woman Susan Haz­zard said “the nation­al anthem was sched­uled to play at 5:20 p.m. today. We didn’t wait until the ath­letes were on the podi­um for the ham­mer throw awards. The nation­al anthem is played every day accord­ing to a pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished sched­ule.” On Sat­ur­day, the music start­ed at 5:25.

And so, while win­ner DeAn­na Price and sec­ond-place fin­ish­er Brooke Ander­sen stood still on the podi­um with their hands over the hearts and stared straight ahead at the Amer­i­can and Ore­gon flags, Berry fid­get­ed and paced on the third step. Then turned away. And final­ly grabbed her T‑shirt.

“They said they were going to play it before we walked out, then they played it when we were out there,” Berry said. “But I don’t real­ly want to talk about the anthem because that’s not impor­tant. The anthem doesn’t speak for me. It nev­er has.”

Berry’s ges­tures drew vir­tu­al­ly no reac­tion from the still-fill­ing stands. And they were some­thing far less than two sum­mers ago, when Berry raised her fist on the podi­um after win­ning the Pan-Am Games.

That demon­stra­tion led to a sanc­tion, but ulti­mate­ly pushed the U.S. Olympic and Par­a­lympic Com­mit­tee to com­mit to not pun­ish­ing ath­letes who raise fists or kneel at the tri­als or in Tokyo. It’s a poten­tial flash point for Tokyo, where the IOC has said it will enforce its Rule 50 that bans demon­stra­tions inside the lines. It’s the same pro­hi­bi­tion that got sprint­ers Tom­mie Smith and John Car­los sent home from the Mex­i­co City Games in 1968.

Now, Berry will be head­ing to her sec­ond Olympics, and she saw what it will take to earn any­thing close to a sim­i­lar moment in Tokyo.

Price won with a throw of 263 feet, 6 inch­es (80.31 meters), which was near­ly 7 feet longer than Berry’s throw. Price broke the meet record on four of her six throws, and the last two of those throws also broke the Amer­i­can record. She became only the sec­ond woman in his­to­ry to crack 80 meters.

She had no prob­lem shar­ing the stage with Berry.

“I think peo­ple should say what­ev­er they want to say. I’m proud of her,” Price said.

She fig­ures to be going for gold along with world-record hold­er Ani­ta Wlo­dar­czyk of Poland, who is expect­ed to be in Japan. Mean­while, Andersen’s throw was a mere 2 inch­es shy of Berry’s per­son­al best.

Berry said she needs to get “my body right, my mind right and my spir­it right” for the Olympics. The women’s ham­mer throw starts Aug. 1.

But Berry doesn’t think she needs to be on the podi­um in Tokyo to have the biggest impact.

“I don’t need to do any­thing sport-wise,” she said. “What I need to do is speak for my com­mu­ni­ty, to rep­re­sent my com­mu­ni­ty and to help my com­mu­ni­ty. Because that’s more impor­tant than sports.”