Week in Review: Dynamite debut for Sawe
Kenyan runs 2:02:05 in Valencia in first race at marathon distance
If not for the late Kelvin Kiptum, Sabastian Sawe of Kenya would have made the fastest marathon debut in history on Sunday when he ran 2 hours 2 minutes and 5 seconds to win the men’s division of the Valencia Marathon in Spain.
The 29-year-old Sawe had entered the race as a standout performer in the half marathon, having won that event in the inaugural World Athletics Road Racing Championships in Riga, Latvia, last year. However, I was not expecting him to run the fastest time of the year in the marathon while moving to fifth on the all-time performer list and running the eighth-fastest time in history in his first race at the 42.195-kilometer/26-mile 385-yard distance.
“It’s an amazing day, I’m so happy to be here and win in Valencia which is so beautiful,” Sawe said in quotes on the race website. “It’s my debut and I’m really happy to win today.”
Kiptum had shocked the marathoning world when he ran 2:01:53 in his debut race at the distance in the 2022 Valencia Marathon and he followed that with times of 2:01:25 in the London Marathon in April of last year and a world record of 2:00:35 in the Chicago Marathon about five and a half months later.
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He had talked about taking a shot at the breaking the two-hour barrier in the Rotterdam Marathon in the Netherlands in April, but he and his coach, Gervais Hakizimana, were killed in a single-car accident in Kenya in February when the automobile Kiptum was driving veered off the road before entering a ditch and hitting a tree.
While many fans figured that the chance of seeing a two-hour marathon anytime soon had ended with the death of Kiptum and his coach, Sawe’s performance in Valencia made me wonder if he might have a legitimate chance at becoming the first man to break that magical barrier in an official race in the next two to three years.
Despite his inexperience in the marathon, Sawe ran like a veteran of the event, staying in the middle of the lead pack for most of the first 25 kilometers of the race before being in fourth place as part of a five-runner group at 30 kilometers.
Defending champion Sisay Lemma of Ethiopia, who had bettered Kiptum’s course record in Valencia with a 2:01:48 clocking last year, seemed a little impatient at that point in the race as he ran behind a pair of pacesetters who came through the 30-kilometer mark in 1:27:21.
You can click here for a detailed report on the Valencia Marathon.
That split projected to a final time of 2:02:51, but the pace quickened not long after that and Lemma began to fall back in the 32nd kilometer of the race.
Kenyan Daniel Mateiko and Ethiopian Deresa Geleta led third-place Sawe by three seconds a kilometer later.
Although Sawe caught up to Geleta during the next four minutes of the race, the two of them were five seconds or so in arrears of Mateiko an hour and 39 minutes into the contest.
However, Mateiko’s lead had been reduced to two seconds over Sawe and three over Geleta when he came through the 35 kilometers in 1:41:44. And Sawe was never seriously challenged for first place after he surged past Mateiko at the 1:44:30 mark.
“I was used to run half marathon,” Sawe said. “I was comfortable during the first half, then I was next to head of race, I saw my fellow and in that moment I think I could go faster than him, and I just did it.”
His lead had grown to about 10 seconds over Geleta and Mateiko by the 1:48:00 mark and it was even larger when he came through 40 kilometers in 1:55:52 after running the previous five kilometers in 14:06, the fastest 5k segment of the race.
After looking very smooth and relaxed as he drew away from Geleta and Mateiko, Sawe’s effort became a little more strained in the final minutes of the race. Nonetheless, his final time made him the 11th man to have run under 2:03 in the event and was the result of having run the second half of the contest in 60:46 after covering the first half in 61:19.
Geleta became the 12th man to break the 2:03 barrier when he finished second in 2:02:38 to moved to seventh on the all-time performer list while running the 11th-fastest time ever. A visibly-laboring Mateiko finished third in 2:04:24 in the first marathon he has finished.
Alphonce Simbu of Tanzania placed fourth in 2:04:38 and he was followed by 42-year-old Tadesse Abraham of Switzerland in 2:04:40 and Chimdessa Debele of Ethiopia in 2:04:44.
A record 10 runners ran under 2:05 as Maru Teferi of Israel finished seventh in 2:04:45, followed by Hillary Kipkoech of Kenya in 2:04:45, Samwel Fitwi of Germany in 2:04:56, and Lemma in 2:04:59.
While Geleta’s time took nearly 50 seconds off his previous best of 2:03:27 that he had run in winning the Seville Marathon in Spain in February, Abraham, Teferi, and Fitwi set national records. Simbu’s mark was a personal best, and Debele and Kipkoech turned in standout efforts in their marathon debuts.
“First part of course I see how it was going, second part I try to push myself, finally I was seeing I can do it better. And I did it,” Sawe said.
He then added that after “this first marathon I’m sure I can obtain more records.”
Nice way to cap career: In what was expected to be the final high-level marathon of his career, Tadesse Abraham became the first Swiss runner to run under 2:05 when he clocked 2:04:40 to place fifth in the Valencia Marathon in Spain on Sunday.
It was the fifth national record of Abraham’s career and the third in his last four marathons.
The 42-year-old Abraham is a native of Eritrea who sought asylum in Switzerland in 2004. He became eligible to represent Switzerland internationally in 2014 and set his first national record when he ran 2:06:40 while finishing fourth in the Seoul Marathon in 2016. He lowered that mark by two seconds when he ran 2:06:38 to win the Zurich Marathon in 2022.
His next national record came in last year’s Berlin Marathon when he placed 11th in 2:05:10 and he followed that with a 2:05:01 clocking in winning the Barcelona Marathon in March of this year.
Although he ran 2:12:22 while finishing 38th in the Olympic Games in Paris in August while running on an extremely challenging course in warm conditions, his 2:04:40 effort in Valencia moved him to fourth on the all-time European performer list and made him one of nine Europeans to have run under 2:05.
Tough day for an all-time great: Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, a three-time Olympic and five-time World championship gold medalist in the men’s 5,000 and 10,000 meters on the track, dropped out of the Valencia Marathon on Sunday.
The 42-year-old Bekele had set a world masters (age 40 and over) record of 2:04:15 in finishing second in the London Marathon in April after lowering the previous best to 2:04:19 in placing fourth in the Valencia Marathon last year. However, he had finished 39th in 2:12:45 in the Olympic Games in Paris in August after incurring a strained hamstring during the race that was contested on a particularly hilly course in warm conditions.
He was amongst a lead pack of 12 runners when he followed some pacesetters through the halfway mark in 1:01:17 on Sunday, but he was 12 seconds behind the front group when he came through 25 kilometers in 1:12:57.
Six for seven: After dropping out of the Olympic Games in Paris in August, Megertu Alemu of Ethiopia won the women’s race of the Valencia Marathon on Sunday with a time of 2:16:49.
It was the sixth time in her last seven marathons that she had run under 2:19 in the event.
The 27-year-old Megertu had become the pre-race favorite after compatriot Amane Beriso, the course record-holder at 2:14:58, had withdrawn from the race with an injury. And Megertu lived up to that billing by breaking open the contest shortly after the halfway point.
Alemu had led a six-runner lead pack through five kilometers in 16:08 and she was in second place when compatriot Tiruye Mesfin led a front group of four women past the 10-kilometer mark in 32:03.
The lead pack had dwindled to Alemu and Ugandan record-holder Stella Chesang when the pair went through 15 kilometers in 47:56 and 20 kilometers in 1:03:48.
Alemu was only a second ahead of Chesang when she came through the halfway mark in 1:07:15, but her advantage had expanded to 14 seconds when she passed the 25-kilometer mark in 1:19:45.
Based on her split at that point in the race, Alemu was projected to run 2:14:36, a time that would have lowered Beriso’s course record by 22 seconds and been the sixth-fastest ever by a woman. However, she began to slow after that, although her lead over Chesang continued to grow.
Her sixth five-kilometer split of the race was 16:10 after she had run 15:57 during the previous 5k segment. And her seventh was 16:48, followed by an eighth 5k segment in 16:49.
While her final time of 2:16:49 was 15 seconds off her personal best of 2:16:34 that she had set in finishing fourth in the London Marathon in April, it left her more than a minute and a half in front of Chesang, who finished second in 2:18:26 while crushing her national record of 2:20:23.
Mesfin finished third in 2:18:35, followed by Evaline Chirchir of Kenya in 2:20:33, Majida Maayout of Spain in 2:21:43, and Chimdesa Kumsa of Ethiopia in 2:21:54.
Laura Luengo of Spain placed seventh in 2:22:31 and she was followed by Isobel Batt-Doyle of Australia in 2:22:59, Moira Stewartova of Czechia in 2:23:44, and Sara Hall of the U.S. in 2:23:45.
While Stewartova’s time was a national record, Mesfin, Chirchir, Kumsa, Luengo, and Batt-Doyle all set personal bests. In addition, the 41-year-old Hall’s time was a U.S. masters (age 40 and over) record.
“I’m so happy to get this victory,” Alemu said through an interpreter during a post-race interview streamed on flotrack.com.
When asked about the atmosphere surrounding the race, she said that “the course is very good, the weather is very good. Everything is good. But during the race, I don’t feel good.”
In quotes on the race website, she said that “I can do better mark but I’m happy to win today.”
She then explained that between “35km and 40 km I wasn’t feeling good, so I decided to reduce rhythm.”
Headed in the right direction: Sara Hall’s personal best of 2:20:32 is more than three minutes faster than her 2:23:45 clocking in the Valencia Marathon on Sunday, but the 41-year-old American felt like she had turned a corner of sorts after finishing 10th in the women’s division.
Hall had run 2:22:10 to place fifth in the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, but she had run 2:25:48 to finish 17th in Boston in her only marathon last year.
After running 2:26:06 to place fifth in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Orlando, Florida, on Feb. 3 of this year, she had clocked 2:27:58 for 15th in Boston on April 15 and 2:30:12 for 18th in Chicago on Oct. 13.
A post on her Instagram account reads as follows: 2:23:45 at Valencia Marathon
My fastest marathon in 2.5 years
Masters American Record
That’s more like it 😭
After a long stretch of not feeling like myself since Boston, it felt so good to have my normal fight out there. Applied the lessons I learned from Chicago, handled the very similar conditions much better. Chose to believe in myself even when my confidence had been rattled over and over. Enjoyed it- SO much. What a dream to do this 4 times this year.
If you’re going through a rough patch, don’t stop believing in yourself. Surround yourself with people who love and support you unconditionally. Throw the watch out the window and focus on enjoying the feeling.
It will come back 🤍
In memory: With the Valencia Marathon on Sunday being held roughly five weeks after catastrophic flash floods had killed more than 220 people in Valencia and the surrounding region, a moment of silence was held for the victims before the race.
Event organizers also pledged to donate three euros to a flood recovery fund on behalf of every runner who finished the race. The 35,000 entered runners were also invited to make contributions to the recovery fund.
A season of firsts: The girls’ team from Trabuco Hills High School of Mission Viejo won its first-ever title in the Division I race of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships at Woodward Park in Fresno last Saturday.
The Mustangs placed four runners among the top 12 finishers while edging Buchanan of Clovis, 48-57, for first place. Defending champion Santiago of Corona, led by individual winner Rylee Blade, placed third with 144 points.
Trabuco Hills had won its first Southern Section championship a week earlier when senior Holly Barker and junior Millie Bayles finished first and second ahead of third-place Blade.
While Blade rebounded to win her second consecutive state title with a 16:46.5 clocking over the 5,000-meter course on Saturday, Barker and Bayles still gave Trabuco Hills an outstanding 1-2 punch when they finished second in 16:58.9 and fourth in 17:22.3.
The Mustangs’ Nos. 3-5 runners were junior Anna Desormeau, who placed eighth in 17:30.6, senior Sophie Guifoile, 12th in 17:38.4, and freshman Evangeline Williams, 36th in 18:16.6.
The cumulative time of Trabuco Hills’ top five runners was 87:47, which crushed the previous state-meet record of 89:00 set by Santiago last year.
Buchanan, the No. 4-ranked team in the nation by dyestat.com, had five runners among the top 25 finishers and six among the first 28, but No. 3 Trabuco Hills had a 22-39 advantage over the Bears when it came to the cumulative score of both squads’ top four runners.
In the race for the individual title, Blade was more than seven seconds ahead of second-place Barker when she went through the mile in 5:12.2 and the Florida State-bound runner’s advantage had grown to just over 10 seconds when she passed 2.1 miles in 11:34.4.
Three in a row for Engelhardt: Senior Sadie Engelhardt of Ventura posted a runaway victory in winning her third consecutive girls’ Division II title in the CIF State Cross Country Championships.
The North Carolina State-bound Engelhardt clocked 16:57.6 over the 5,000-meter course as she finished more than 30 seconds ahead of second-place Kinga Czajkowska of Palo Alto, who ran 17:31.5.
El Toro of Lake Forest won its first team title with a 131-155 victory over second-place Saint Francis Central Coast Catholic of Watsonville. Defending champion Ventura placed fourth with 188 points.
Engelhardt, who has now won a combined seven state individual titles in cross country and track, was seven seconds clear of her nearest competitor when she went through the mile in 5:15.9 and she was 21 seconds up on second-place Jordin Lieberman of Murrieta Valley of Murrieta when she passed 2.1 miles in 11:36.5.
The battle for the team title had a little more suspense to it, although El Toro had a 30-point lead over second-place Ventura after the first mile and the Chargers were 23 points ahead of Whitney of Rocklin after 2.1 miles.
Sophomore Gweneth Williams paced El Toro when she finished 12th in 18:00.5 and the Chargers’ Nos 2 and 3 runners were freshmen Ava Crocker and Lilly Schroeder, who placed 23rd and 26th, respectively, in 18:16.2 and 18:18.9.
Seniors Lucy Varela and Sara Johnson rounded out El Toro’s scoring runners when they finished 49th in 18:38.1 and 58th in 18:51.6.
Another clean sweep: Senior Abigail Errington of South Pasadena won the girls’ Division III individual title while leading the Tigers to a 106-149 victory over second-place Point Loma of San Diego in the team standings in the CIF State Cross Country Championships.
The victories came a week after Errington had won the Southern Section title while also leading South Pasadena to the team championship.
Errington set a Division III meet record in Fresno when she clocked 16:57.5 over the 5,000-meter course while finishing well ahead of three-time defending champion Hanne Thomsen of Montgomery in Santa Rosa, who placed second in 17:21.6.
Errington and Thomsen were running stride for stride when they led the field past the one-mile mark in 5:24.3 and Errington was only a second ahead of Thomsen when she went through 2.1 miles in 11:41.3. But she gained 23 seconds on Thomsen during the last mile of the race.
Saidbh Byrne finished in 12th place for South Pasadena with a time of 17:53.3 and the Tigers’ Nos. 3-5 runners were fellow seniors Maye Lee, 37th in 18:40.8, Sofia Humphrey, 44th in 18:52.0, and Amelie Geoffron, 72nd in 19:17.0.
Errington’s winning time was the third-fastest of the meet across all five divisions.
Fourpeat: JSerra Catholic of San Juan Capistrano had two of the top three finishers, as well as three of the top seven, and five of the top 17 while rolling to a 34-143 victory over second-place Harvard-Westlake of Studio City in the girls’ Division IV race of the CIF State Cross Country Championships.
The victory was the fourth state title in a row for JSerra and the seventh in program history. In addition, its 34-point total was the lowest winning score in the history of the girls’ Division IV championships. The previous best of 40 points was set by JSerra last year.
Junior Chiara Dailey of La Jolla won her second consecutive individual title when she ran 16:44.4, the fastest time of the meet over the 5,000-meter course.
Junior Chloe Elbaz and senior Sophie Polay finished second and third for JSerra with times of 17:33.7 and 17:49.4, respectively.
The Lions’ No. 3 runner was sophomore Reese Holley, who finished seventh in 18:00.0. Freshman Kaia Streadbeck and sophomore Hayden Kroger rounded out JSerra’s scoring runners when they finished 16th and 17th, respectively, with times of 18:25.1 and 18:28.6.
Sophomore wins: Amelia Sarkisian of the Brentwood School in Los Angeles won the girls’ Division V individual title by a large margin in the CIF State Cross Country Championships after breaking open the race in the final mile.
The sophomore was in second place when she came through the mile in 5:26.7 and she had a lead of two-plus seconds over Ella Mogannam of Lick-Wilmerding of San Francisco when she clocked 12:02.9 at 2.1 miles. But she had extended her advantage to nearly 16 seconds when she crossed the finish line in 17:31.8, followed by Mogannam in 17:47.4.
The Branson School of Ross won the team title with an 82-103 victory over Immanuel of Reedley.
Repelling an upset bid: Beckman of Irvine came from behind to win its first team title in the boys’ Division I race of CIF State Cross Country Championships at Woodward Park in Fresno last Saturday.
Beckman entered the meet as the No. 10-ranked team in the nation by dyestat.com, but upstart Redondo Union of Redondo Beach, a team that had finished seventh in the Southern Section championships a week earlier, had a 17-point lead over Beckman after the first mile and a 24-point advantage after 2.1 miles. However, Redondo Union’s team total rose by 47 points in the final mile of the race while Beckman’s only increased by five.
As a result, Beckman totaled a winning 139 points, followed by Bellarmine College Prep of San Jose with 154, Redondo Union with 157, and Trabuco Hills of Mission Viejo with 162.
While junior Connor Lott of Clovis North in Fresno won the individual title with a time of 15:04.4 over the 5,000-meter course, Beckman’s top two runners were seniors Nathan Horrocks and Anthony Barrera, who placed 17th and 18th with times of 15:27.5 and 15:27.9.
Senior Aaron Feaster placed 22nd in 15:31.2 for Beckman and the Patriots’ Nos. 4 and 5 runners were junior Christian Weber, who finished 52nd in 15:48.9, and sophomore Ryan Barris, who was 64th in 15:54.3.
Redondo Union’s top two runners were senior Alexander Barbarie and freshman Mario Montoya, who placed 19th and 20th, respectively, with times of 15:28.3 and 15:28.5.
Upset special: Jesuit of Carmichael, the No. 11-ranked boys’ team in the nation by dyestat.com, won the Division II title as expected in the CIF State Cross Country Championships. But the individual winner was a surprise as J.R. Lesher of Hueneme in Oxnard sped away from a pair of co-favorites late in the race.
Lesher, a senior who had moved from Missouri to California during the summer of 2023, had finished 29th in last year’s state meet before lowering his personal bests to 4:15.54 in the 1,600 meters and to 9:09.43 in the 3,200 during track season.
He had placed 27th in the Woodbridge Cross Country Classic on Sept. 21 before placing 10th in the Clovis Invitational on Oct. 12, winning the Ventura County title a week later, and placing third in the Division 2 race of the Southern Section championships on Nov. 23.
After finishing 18 seconds behind first-place Griffin Kushen of Tesoro of Las Flores in the Southern Section final, he entered the state meet with the goal of running for as long as he could with Kushen and Trey Caldwell of De La Salle in Concord.
Lesher had been in fourth place, two seconds out of first place, when Caldwell led the field through the first mile in 4:36.4. But he, Kushen, Caldwell, and Tyler Daillak of Paso Robles were basically running stride for stride with one another when Kushen and Caldwell were credited with splits of 10:06.7 at 2.1 miles.
Although Lesher had moved past Caldwell into second place with about 400 meters left in the race, he had not given much thought to winning as Kushen had a 15- to 20-meter lead over him. However, he soon began to make up ground on his fellow senior and he caught Kushen with approximately 100 meters left in the race before taking the lead with about 50 meters to go.
His winning time of 14:43.0 crushed his 15:01.1 clocking over the same course in the Clovis Invitational and left him 1.6 seconds in front of Kushen, who timed 14:44.6.
Caldwell finished third in 14:49.8 and he was followed by Dylan Flores of Glendora in 15:02.2. Flores had finished two seconds ahead of Lesher in the Southern Section final.
“I just wanted those really fast guys to pull me to a fast time and a decent place,” Lesher said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “I guess my goal was to stick with them for as long as I could. I’d raced pretty much all of them before and they’d beaten me by different margins, some of them pretty large. I just really wanted them to pull me to a fast time and stick with them. And then it turned out I just had a lot more at the end than I thought I would.”
In addition to Flores in fourth place, Southern Section champion Glendora also received an eighth-place finish from Mathias Oliveros, who ran 15:04.4. However, Jesuit defeated No. 30-ranked Glendora, 73-91, for a record 10th boys’ team title due in large part to the fact that its top four runners placed seventh, 10th, 11th, and 15th, respectively.
Threepeat secured: Senior Evan Noonan of Dana Hills in Dana Point won his third consecutive title in the boys’ Division III race of the CIF State Cross Country Championships with a typically strong final mile.
The win was the fourth in a row for Noonan, whose season got off to a rough start when he finished 18th in the Woodbridge Classic on Sept. 21 and 10th in the Nike XC Town Twilight Invitational in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Oct. 5, after he faded badly in the latter stages of both races.
A diet that lacked the proper amount of carbohydrates appeared to have been the culprit in those two performances and Noonan has looked more and more like his former self since making some adjustments to his caloric intake.
He was at the front of a nine-runner lead pack when he went through the first mile in 4:40.1 on Saturday and he was in third place when Miles Cook of Sacred Heart Cathedral in San Francisco led a front group of four through 2.1 miles in 10:09.7.
However, Noonan drew away from everyone in the final mile to cross the finish line in 14:43.7. Liam Miller of South in Torrance placed second in 14:51.9, followed by fellow senior Cook in 14:54.5.
North Coast Section champion Campolindo of Moraga won the team title with a 151-182 victory over Southern Section champion Oak Park.
Oak Park’s top runner, senior Grant Jones, finished 32nd in 15:48.3. But the gap between Jones and the team’s No. 5 runner, sophomore Quinn Foster in 64th place, was only 18.6 seconds.
Big jump: After finishing 10th in 2022 and ninth last year, Oaks Christian of Westlake Village won its first title in the boys’ Division IV race of the CIF State Cross Country Championships.
The Lions were the pre-race favorites and the No. 20-ranked team in the nation had a solid margin of victory in its 61-89 win over JSerra Catholic of San Juan Capistrano. Foothill Tech of Ventura finished third with 147 points.
While senior Eli Fitchen-Young of Santa Cruz won the individual title by nearly 16 seconds with a time of 14:41.3 over the 5,000-meter course, seniors Christian Yoder and Cooper McNee paced Oaks Christian when they finished fourth in 15:07.5 and fifth in 15:09.1, respectively.
Senior Joshua Mitchell placed 21st in 15:48.6 for Oaks Christian and the Lions’ fourth and fifth runners were right behind him as junior Vin Krueger and sophomore Arizechkwu Nwosu finished 23rd and 24th with times of 15:48.7 and 15:49.2.
The cumulative time of Oaks Christian’s top five runners, or team time as it is often called, was 77:43, which was a minute and 36 seconds faster than the previous Division IV meet record of 79:19 that had been set by St. Francis of La Canada last year.
Closing the meet with a rush: Senior Eyan Turk of Woodcrest Christian in Riverside won his second consecutive title in the boys’ Division V race of the CIF State Cross Country Championships.
Running in the final race of the meet, the University of Kentucky-bound Turk clocked 14:32.5 over the 5,000-meter course to finish six-plus seconds ahead of second-place Landon Prete of Menlo in Atherton, who ran 14:38.8.
Turk’s time was the fastest of the meet in all five divisions, made him the top individual qualifier from California for the Nike Cross Nationals meet in Portland, Oregon, this Saturday, and crushed the Division V meet record of 14:59 that was first set by Trevon Reinhart of Marin Academy in San Rafael in 2014 and tied by Cooper Teare of St. Joseph Notre Dame in Alameda in 2016.
Turk’s 14:32.5 clocking will be rounded up to 14:33 for state record-book purposes.
Turk, who had finished eighth in the state championships as a freshman and third as a sophomore, expected the race to come down to a battle between him, Prete, and Benjamin Bouie of Crystal Springs Uplands in Hillsborough, and those three were clear of the field when Prete led them through the mile in 4:43.0.
Prete was still in the lead when he passed 2.1 miles in 10:05.0 and Bouie began to drop back soon after that.
Prette and Turk ran together for a while longer before Turk broke open the race.
“It was definitely a true honor to be pushed by Landon,” Turk said in an sbsun.com post. “I was anticipating it to be him, Ben Bouie and I, and in the last mile it was Landon and I. With a 600 or so to go, I knew if I wanted it, I had to go now and I just took off and never let off the gas for a second.”
While the race for the individual title was competitive, Prete and his teammates dominated the team competition as Menlo had four of the top nine finishers while recording a 28-118 victory over second-place Viewpoint of Calabasas.
The Knights’ 28-point total bettered the Division V meet record of 29 set by a McFarland team in 1996 and its 76:37 team time obliterated the meet record of 79:44 set by a squad from Flintridge Prep in La Canada Flintridge in 2015.
The 76:37 team time was also the second-fastest of the meet behind the 76:30 mark posted by Division II champion Jesuit of Carmichael, the No. 11-ranked team in the nation.
And the winners are…: Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands and Letsile Tebogo of Botswana were announced as the men’s and women’s world athletes of the year at the World Athletics Awards 2024 gala in Monaco on Sunday.
Hassan and Tebogo received the highest honors after previously being named as the women’s out of stadium and men’s track winners, respectively.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of the U.S. was announced as the women’s track athlete of the year, while Yaroslava Mahuckikh of Ukraine and Mondo Duplantis of Sweden won the respective women’s and men’s field athlete of the year awards,
Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia won the men’s out of stadium award.
It was an historic season for both Hassan and Tebogo.
The 31-year-old Hassan became the first woman ever to win medals in the 5,000, 10,000, and marathon in the same Olympiad when she placed third in the 5,000 and 10,000, and first in the marathon in the Games in Paris.
She toed the line for the start of the marathon roughly 34 and a half hours after she had finished third in the 10,000 behind Beatrice Chebet of Kenya and Nadia Battocletti of Italy.
Emil Zatopek of Czechoslovakia, who won the men’s 5,000, 10,000, and marathon in the Games of Helsinki in 1952, is the only other runner to have won medals in all three of those events in the same Olympics.
“Thank you to the fans, to everybody who voted,” said Hassan, who was in Monaco to receive her two awards. “I never thought I was going to win this one. This year was crazy. It’s not only me – all the athletes have been amazing. I’m really grateful. What more can I say?”
The 21-year-old Tebogo became the first African to win the men’s 200 meters in the Olympic Games when he clocked a continental record of 19.46 seconds in Paris to move to fifth on the all-time performer list.
He followed that performance by running a 43.04-second anchor leg on a Botswanan 4 x 400 relay team that finished a narrow second to the U.S. in the Olympic final in which the two squads recorded the second- and third-fastest times ever with clockings of 2:54.43 and 2:54.53.
In addition to his performances in the 200 and the 4 x 400 relay, Tebogo ran a national record of 9.86 seconds while finishing sixth in the 100 in Paris four days before he won the 200.
In other events, he set a world best of 30.69 in the 300 in February and lowered his personal best to 44.29 in the 400 in March.
Tebogo, while standing alongside Hassan on the stage at the Theatre Princesse Grace, said that “It feels amazing to know that the fans are always there for us athletes. It was a great year.”
He then added, “This means a lot. It’s not just about the team that is around you, there are a lot of fans out there that really want us to win something great for the continent. It was a real surprise to hear my name because I didn’t expect this.”
Hassan, who had finished fourth in the Tokyo Marathon in March before setting an Olympic record of 2:22:55 in the marathon in Paris, won the women’s out of stadium award over Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya.
Chepngetich had lowered the world record in the women’s marathon by almost two minutes when she ran 2:09:56 in Chicago. Prior to that, she had finished ninth in 2:24:36 in the London Marathon in April.
Tebogo won the men’s track award over Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway, who finished fourth in the 1,500 in the Olympic Games before winning the 5,000 four days later. He also lowered the world record by more than three seconds in the 3,000 meters when he ran 7:17.55 in the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial meet in Chorzow, Poland, fifteen days after his 5,000-meter triumph in Paris.
McLaughlin-Levrone won the women’s track award over Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia, who won the 100 and finished second in the 200 in the Olympics.
McLaughlin-Levrone set the sixth world record of her career in the 400 hurdles when she won the Olympic title in 50.37 seconds. That performance came about five and a half weeks after she had set a world record of 50.65 in winning the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Eugene, Oregon.
Two days after her victory in the 400 hurdles in Paris, she ran a scintillating 47.71 second leg on a U.S. team that won the 4 x 400 relay by more than four seconds with a time of 3:15.27, the second-fastest in history to a Soviet Union squad that ran 3:15.17 in the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul.
In addition to her exploits in the 400 hurdles and 4 x 400 relay, McLaughlin-Levrone also had season bests of 22.07 in the 200, 48.75 in the 400, and 12.71 in the 100 hurdles.
Mahuchikh won the women’s field award over Nafi Thiam of Belgium, who won the heptathlon in the Olympic Games in August and in the European Athletics Championships in Rome in June.
Mahuchikh was undefeated in seven meets in the high jump outdoors and she raised the world record to 2.10 meters (6 feet 10¾ inches) at the Meeting de Paris on July 7 before winning the Olympic title with a clearance of 2.00 (6-6¾).
Her 2.10 clearance in the Meeting de Paris was four centimeters higher than her pre-meet personal best of 2.06 (6-9) and it broke the world record of 2.09 (6-10¼) that had been set by Stefka Kostadinova of Bulgaria in the 1987 World Championships in Rome.
Duplantis won the men’s field award over Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece, who won the long jump in both the Olympic Games and the European Championships.
Duplantis was undefeated in 14 meets — indoors and outdoors — in the pole vault this year and he set three world records during the course of the outdoor season.
His third world record of 6.26 (20-6½) came in the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial and his second of 6.25 (20-6) occurred in the Olympic Games.
He also won the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, in March, and the European title in Rome in June.
Tola won the men’s out of stadium award over Brian Pintado of Ecuador, the Olympic gold medalist in the 20-kilometer walk.
Tola set an Olympic record of 2:06:26 in winning the marathon in Paris in a race that was contested on a very challenging course and in warm conditions.
His victory came about two weeks after he had been named to the Ethiopian team as a replacement for Sisay Lemma, who had withdrawn from the Games due to a knee injury.
In his other marathon races, Tola dropped out of the London Marathon in April and placed fourth in 2:08:12 in the New York City Marathon in November.
Six gold medalists and counting: When Grand Slam Track announced last week that Gabby Thomas of the U.S. had signed a contract to compete in the first-year professional track league in 2025, she became the sixth individual gold medalist from the Olympic Games in Paris to have done so.
The other five Olympic champions to have signed contracts are Americans Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone in the women’s 400 hurdles, Masai Russell in the women’s 100 hurdles, Quincy Hall in the men’s 400, and Cole Hocker in the men’s 1,500, as well as the Dominican Republic’s Marileidy Paulino in the women’s 400.
In addition to winning the women’s 200 in Paris, Thomas also ran the third leg on victorious squads in both the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 relays.
As of last week, 38 athletes had signed contracts to run in all four of the Grand Slam Track events scheduled for next year.
In addition to the aforementioned six gold medals, those performers also combined to win nine silver medals and nine bronze medals in individual events in the Olympic Games in August.
Grand Slam Track, which is the brain child of four-time Olympic gold medalist sprinter Michael Johnson, will kick off with its first meet at National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica, from April 4-6 of next year.
The other three meets — or slams as they are being called — will be held at the Ansin Sports Complex, in Miramar, Florida, from May 2-4; at Franklin Field in Philadelphia from May 30-June 1; and at Drake Stadium on the campus of UCLA in Westwood, California, from June 27-29.
The meets will consist strictly of track events and will pit eight performers against one other in each of the following men’s and women’s categories: short sprints (100/200), long sprints (200/400), short hurdles (100 or 110 hurdles/100), long hurdles (400 hurdles/400), short distances (800/1,500), and long distances (3,000/5,000).
Each meet will be held over the course of a weekend, with each competitor running in the two events in their designated category to determine an overall champion for that meet. The winner will be awarded $100,000 in prize money, with the runner-up receiving $50,000 and the third-place finisher winning $30,000.
The remaining prize money for the fourth- through eighth-place finishers will be awarded on a $25,000-$20,000-$15,000-$12,500-$10,000 basis.
You can click here for more details about Grand Slam Track.
In memory: Ilke Wyludda, the 1996 Olympic champion in the women’s discus for Germany, died on Sunday in the German city of Halle. She was 55.
The three-time Olympian was a silver medalist in the World championships in 1991 and ’95, and she also placed fourth in the global title meet in 1987.
She was ranked among the world’s top 10 women’s discus throwers 10 times by Track & Field News, including No. 1 rankings from 1989-91, and from 1994-96. In addition, she is tied for second on the all-time performer list with a best of 74.56 (244-7) from 1989, when she was competing for East Germany.
The Berlin Wall fell in November of 1989 and German reunification began shortly thereafter.
“With Ilke Wyludda, a figurehead of German athletics has unfortunately left us far too early at the age of 55,” German Athletics Federation Chairman Idriss Gonschinska was quoted as saying in a World Athletics post. “The athletics family mourns the loss of a truly great athlete who fought against injuries and illnesses throughout her life and yet remained committed to her sport for decades.”
Wyludda retired after finishing seventh in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, but she later competed in the 2012 Paralympics in London after having had her right leg amputated above the knee because of sepsis.
She became a physiotherapist after her competitive days before studying medicine.