Week in Review: Epic duel in men's 5,000 tops list of standout performances in Bislett Games
Kejelcha and Kiplimo went down to the wire while moving into tie for fifth on all-time world performer list
When it came time to decide what individual and/or race to profile at the top of this week’s column, I went against the grain of a lot of publications and online sites in regards to the most outstanding performance in the Bislett Games Diamond League meet in Oslo on June 15.
While several reports I read highlighted the performances of Norway’s Karsten Warholm or Jakob Ingebrigtsen in their leads, I decided to focus on the scintillating race that Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia and Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda waged in the men’s 5,000 meters.
Warholm’s winning time of 46.52 seconds in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles — in his first outdoor race of the season — was sensational and the fourth-fastest performance in history. But he was never seriously challenged for first place. He finished more than a second in front of runner-up CJ Allen of the U.S., who notched his third personal best of the season with his 47.58 clocking.
Though Ingebrigtsen’s margin of victory in the men’s 1,500 was not quite as large as Warholm’s in the intermediate hurdles, you never got the feeling he was going to be overtaken by any of his fellow competitors in the final 200 meters of a race in which he lowered his European record to 3 minutes 27.95 seconds to move to sixth on the all-time performer list.
Ingebrigtsen himself, in flash quotes posted on the meet web site, said that the race “went as expected,” and he was “running by myself as usual.”
The dominating performances of Warholm and Ingebrigtsen were something to behold, but in my humble opinion they did not top the drag-down, knock-out duel that the 25-year-old Kejelcha and the 22-year-old Kiplimo waged in the 5,000.
The race was so close that first-place Kejelcha and second-place Kiplimo were credited with identical times of 12:41.73, although the finish line photo determined that the taller Kejelcha finished three thousandths of a second in front of Kiplimo.
Statistically speaking, both men were credited with running the equal sixth-fastest times in history and moving into a tie for fifth on the all-time performer list. The world record of 12:35.36 was set by Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda in 2020.
Although Kiplimo was running in his first track of the season in Oslo, he had turned in a pair of outstanding performances in winning the men’s races of the World Athletics Cross Country Championships near Bathurst, Australia on Feb. 18 and the New York City Half Marathon on March 19.
He was content to let Zan Rudolf of Slovenia lead the field through the first kilometer in 2:34.83 in Oslo and he was in fourth place when pace setter Callum Davies of Australia came through two kilometers in 5:10.88. But the world-record holder in the half marathon moved into second place over the next 100 meters and when Davies dropped out, he was leading a pack that was headed by Telahun Haile Bekele of Ethiopia and Luis Grijalva of Guatemala.
When Kiplimo came through 3,000 meters in 7:47.20, the projected finishing time was 12:58.16. But it had dropped to 12:51.90 after Kiplimo came through 4,000 meters in 10:17.52 after a 2:30.32 fourth kilometer.
Kiplimo, Bekele, and Keljecha were still bunched tightly together at that point. However, Kejelcha moved into the lead with two laps left in the race. Bekele began to fall back 200 meters later, but Kiplimo stuck doggedly to Kejelcha, who lowered the world indoor mile record to 3:47.01 in 2019.
Kiplimo, the 10,000-meter bronze medalist in last year’s World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon and in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021, appeared to be on the verge of edging past Kejelcha in the final few strides of the race. But the Ethiopian never gave in and timed his lean well as the two crossed the finish line seemingly at the same time.
It was only after officials looked at the finish photo that it was determined that Kejelcha had run 12:41.725 to Kiplimo’s 12:41.728.
Bekele finished third in a personal best of 12:46.21 to move to 10th on the all-time performer list and to fifth amongst Ethiopians.
Joe Klecker of the U.S. closed well over the last few laps to finish fourth in 12:56.59, just ahead of fifth-place Grijalva in 12:56.63.
“I expected the finish to be like this – fight until the end,” Kejelcha was quoted as saying on the meet website. “But I am glad I got it.”
Kejelcha, the silver medlalist in the 10,000 in the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, had finished a disappointing eighth in the 5,000 in the World Championships last year after placing eighth in the 10,000 in the Olympics the previous year. But he had run 12:52.12 to finish three hundredths of a second behind winner Mohamed Katir of Spain in a loaded Diamond League meet in Florence, Italy on June 2, and his winning time in Oslo slashed a little more than five seconds off his previous best of 12:46.79 that he had run in 2018.
Kiplimo cut nearly seven seconds off his previous best of 12:48.63 that he had set in 2020.
“It was always my dream to win this event,” Kejelcha said in Oslo. “Now, my next dream is Monaco, and then to become an Olympic champion one day… I do not know. I will try to win the world title, but it is going to be difficult. I will try my best.”
He’s baaack: Karsten Warholm of Norway had been far less than 100 percent when he finished seventh in the men’s 400-meter intermediate hurdles in the World Championships last July. But his performance in the Bislett Games Diamond League meet in Oslo would seem to indicate that he is experiencing no lingering effects of a strained right hamstring that he suffered in his first outdoor meet of the season in early June of last year.
Running in lane seven on the eight-lane track at Bislett Stadium, Warholm ran his typically strong opening 200 meters of the race before really taking charge of things around the second curve as his advantage over second-place CJ Allen of the U.S. began to grow. After attacking the final two barriers of the race, Warholm crossed the finish line in 46.52 seconds to the delight of the crowd in the Norwegian capital.
The time, which left Warholm well clear of Allen’s personal best of 47.58 in second place, was the fourth fastest in history and the second fastest of his career behind the 45.94 world record he had set in winning the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021.
“When you're on the track, you're in the bubble but I really felt the crowd lift me in the home straight - the adrenaline was really pumping in the last 100 meters,” Warholm said in quotes on the meet website. “It was a race I will always remember - I felt really good today and knew something special was coming. Today shows in the right circumstances, I can really attack the world record, maybe even this year. It really sucked to be out injured last year and I wanted to make sure I came back with a big boom - I've worked really hard to get back to this level so I'm really happy.”
Warholm was the two-time defending champion entering the World Championships last year, but he finished seventh in the final in 48.42 after fading badly in the home straightaway. He rebounded to win the European title in 47.12 on Aug. 19 and he backed up that performance with a winning time of 47.24 in the ISTAF meet in Berlin a little more than two weeks later. But you got the feeling that the outgoing and excitable Warholm had been eagerly anticipating his first outdoor race of the season in Oslo to show everyone that he would once again be a dominant force.
Welcome to the sub-3:28 club: Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway got the personal best he was shooting for and then some in winning the men’s 1,500 meters in the Bislett Games Diamond League meet in Oslo.
Running in the final event of the competition, the 22-year-old Ingebrigtsen became the sixth man in history to break 3:28 in the 1,500 when he finished in 3:27.95.
The time was the 18th fastest in history and lowered the European record of 3:28.32 that Ingebrigtsen had run in winning the Olympic title in Tokyo in 2021.
It also led one of the great mass finishes in history as Mohamed Katir of Spain placed second in 3:28.89, followed by Yared Nuguse of the U.S. (3:29.02), Olympic silver medalist Timothy Cheruiyot of Kenya (3:29.08), and Mario Garcia of Spain (3:29.18). Three other runners broke 3:30 as Azeddine Habz of France finished sixth in 3:29.26, followed by Olli Hoare of Australia in seventh in 3:29.41 and Narve Gilje Nordas of Norway in eighth in 3:29.47.
Ingebrigtsen, who crushed the world best in the two-mile with a 7:54.10 clocking in the Meeting de Paris Diamond League meet six days before the Bislett Games, was in third place when first pace setter Mounir Akbache of France led the field through 400 meters in 55.47.
Akbache continued to lead through 700 meters, but after he dropped out, Kenyan Boaz Kiprugat led the field through 800 in 1:51.68, with Ingebrigtsen, Katir and Cheruiyot following in that order.
Kiprugat continued to lead until he dropped out with about 490 meters left in the race. Ingrebrigtsen took over first place at that point and he proceeded to lead the field through 1,200 meters in 2:46.91.
Katir was close behind him as they entered the backstretch for the final time, with another three meters back to Nuguse, and then Hoare.
Kair was still focused on Ingebrigtsen as they came out of the final curve, but with the capacity crowd roaring its approval, Ingebrigtsen shifted into a gear no one else had with about 80 meters left in the race.
“The crowd was amazing - it was amazing to perform this way in front of my home crowd, it's a dream come true,” said Ingebrigtsen, who won the mile in 3:46.46 in the Bislett Games last year. “I won [the mile] last year but this year running in my main event is an incredible experience.”
Runaway victory: Marie-Josee Ta Lou of Ivory Coast dominated the second half of the women’s 100 meters in the Bislett Games Diamond League meet in Oslo while running a yearly world-leading time of 10.75 seconds.
The 34-year-old Ta Lou trailed the always fast-starting Ewa Swoboda of Poland out of the blocks, but she had pulled even with the Pole approaching the midway point of the race and no one in the field could hang with her over the final 50 meters. She finished well in front of the 10.92 personal best of runner-up Athonique Strachan of the Bahamas. World Championship silver medalist Shericka Jackson of Jamaica and the British duo of Daryll Neita and Dina Asher-Smith placed third, fourth, and fifth, respectively, in identical times of 10.98.
Ta Lou’s time lowered her previous season best of 10.78 run in a meet in Clermont, Florida in the middle of May. It was also the second fastest performance of her career behind the 10.72 national record she had set last August while finishing third behind five-time World champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (10.62) and Jackson (10.71) in Monaco.
Summit meeting: Wayde van Niekirk of South Africa won the men’s 400 meters in 44.38 seconds in the Bislett Games Diamond League meet in Oslo to hand Muzala Samukanga of Zambia his first loss of the season.
The 20-year-old Samukanga had run a national record and yearly world-leading time of 43.91 in winning the Botswana Golden Grand Prix in Gaborone, Botswana on April 29. But his late homestretch charge was not enough to catch the 30-year-old van Niekirk at Bislett Stadium as he finished second in 44.49. Vernon Norwood of the U.S. was a close third in 44.51.
Matthew Hudson-Smith of Great Britain, the bronze medalist in the World Championships last year, was van Niekirk’s biggest challenger for the first 300 meters of the race, but he faded in the home straightaway and finished fifth in 44.92.
It was van Niekirk’s first Diamond League race since 2017 as he had sustained a pair of severe knee injuries during the fall of that year while participating in a charity tag rugby match.
“It was a good race and it is great to be back on the circuit but it is very hard for me right now,” said van Niekirk, who is unbeaten in three finals this season. “I'm just taking it race by race.”
He added that he tries not to think too far ahead, but the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary from Aug. 19-27 are a big goal.
Big effort in a solid series: Olympic champion Wojciech Nowicki of Poland had the fourth-best mark of his career in winning the men’s hammer throw in the Bislett Games Diamond League meet in Oslo.
The 34-year-old Nowicki unleashed his best effort of 81.92 meters (268 feet 9 inches) in the second round and he also had throws of 79.47 (260-8) in the fourth round and 79.01 (259-2) in the third round.
Rudy Winkler of the U.S. placed second at 79.42 (260-7), followed by Ethan Katzberg of Canada at 77.93 (255-8). Pawel Fadjek of Poland, winner of an unprecedented five titles in the World Championships, placed fifth at 76.50 (251-0).
Nowicki set his personal best of 82.52 (270-9) in winning the Olympic title in Tokyo in 2021 and he also had a throw of 82.06 (269-3) in that competition. The third-best throw of his career came in the European Championships in Berlin last year, when he won the event at 82.00 (269-0).
Significant victory: Jorinde van Klinken of the Netherlands handed Valarie Allman of the U.S. her first loss of the season in the women’s discus in the Bislett Games Diamond League meet in Oslo.
The fourth-place finisher in the Olympic Games in 2021 and the World Championships last year, van Klinken produced her winning throw of 66.77 (219-0) in the fifth round to jump from third to first in the standings.
Olympic champion Allman, who had won her first six meets of the season, had a sixth-round effort that appeared to have been farther than van Klinken’s winning throw. But it was ruled that she had fouled and she placed second with a best of 66.18 (217-11). Olympic silver medalist Sandra Perkovic of Croatia finished third at 65.26 (214-1).
Six days before the Bislett Games, the 23-year-old van Klinken had capped her collegiate career by winning her third consecutive discus title in the NCAA championships while competing for the University of Oregon as a grad student. Her first two championships had come while she was working toward her undergraduate degree at Arizona State.
Strong rebound: Kristjan Ceh of Slovenia had the best series of his young career while raising his personal best to 71.86 (235-9) in winning the men’s discus in a meet in Johvi, Estonia last Friday.
World champion Ceh entered the meet with a national record of 71.27 (233-10) from last year. But he topped that mark with a throw of 71.70 (235-3) in the fourth round before improving to 71.86 in the sixth round. That had come after a 71.19 (233-6) effort in round five.
The 71.70 effort briefly moved the 24-year-old Ceh into a tie for seventh on the all-time performer list and the 71.86 mark vaulted him into a three-way tie for fourth with Yuriy Dumchev of the Soviet Union (1983) and defending Olympic champion Daniel Stahl of Sweden (2019).
The 32-year-old Stahl finished second at 71.45 (234-5) in Johvi to become the first man in history to be beaten while throwing the discus more than 71 meters (232-11).
He had handed Ceh his first loss of the season three days earlier in the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku, Finland when his best of 70.38 (230-11) gave him a comfortable margin of victory over his Slovenian rival’s top mark of 68.67 (225-3).
Two liners: Femke Bol of the Netherlands ran a yearly world-leading time of 52.30 seconds in winning the women’s 400-meter hurdles in the Bislett Games Diamond League meet in Oslo on June 15. It was the fourth-fastest time of her career for Bol, the silver medalist in the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon last year. . . . Erriyon Knighton of the U.S. won his third 200-meter race of the season with a meet-record performance of 19.77 in the Bislett Games. The bronze medalist in the World Championships last year had previously run 19.89 in Florence, Italy on June 2 and 19.95 in Bydgoszcz, Poland four days later. . . . Beatrice Chebet of Kenya, who won the women’s race of the World Athletics Cross Championships near Bathurst, Australia in February, posted a yearly-world leading time of 8:25.01 in winning the 3,000 in the Bislett Games. Her personal best led Kenya to a sweep of the first three places. . . . Jakub Vadlejch of the Czech Republic had the farthest throw in the world this year in the men’s javelin when he won the event at 89.51 meters (293 feet 8 inches) in the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku, Finland on June 13. The silver medalist in the Olympic Games had a comfortable margin of victory over Finn Oliver Helander, who placed second at 87.32 (286-6). . . . Niklas Kaul of Germany totaled 8,484 points to win the decathlon in the Stadtwerke Ratingen Mehrkampf-Meeting in Germany last weekend. Three of the 2019 World champion’s best performances came on the second day of the multi-event competition when he posted marks of 48.57 (159-4) in the discus, 67.44 (221-3) in the javelin, and 4:14.19 in the 1,500. . . . Cravont Charleston lacks the name recognition of many sprinters in the U.S., but he continued his fine outdoor season when he ran a personal best of 9.90 to win the men’s 100 in the Kuortane Games in Kuortane, Finland last Friday. Charleston had a personal best of 9.98 at the start of the season, but he lowered it to 9.91 when he finished second in the Los Angeles Grand Prix at UCLA on May 27.
Moving to the next level: In a move that did not come as a surprise, Britton Wilson has signed a pro contract — with Irvine, California-based HSInternational Sports Management — and will pass up her final year of athletic eligibility at the University of Arkansas.
The 22-year-old Wilson had set a U.S. indoor record of 49.48 seconds in winning the women’s 400 meters in the NCAA indoor meet in Albuquerque, New Mexico in early March before lowering the collegiate outdoor record three times, topped by a 49.13 effort in the Southeastern Conference meet in mid-May.
Although Wilson’s bold bid to win the 400 and 400 hurdles in the NCAA outdoor meet ended with a second-place finish in the 400 and a seventh-place performance in the 400 hurdles, which was held 25 minutes after the 400, her future appears to be extremely bright.
Her 49.13 best in the 400 ranks second on this year’s world performer list, as well as fourth on the all-time U.S. list. In the 400 hurdles, she ranks 10th on the all-time U.S. performer list with a best of 53.08 and she placed fifth in the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon last year.
End of the line: Barring anything unforeseen, Newbury Park High School’s run as the greatest boys’ distance program in U.S. history appeared to come to a close last weekend when twins Leo and Lex Young and fellow senior Aaron Sahlman ran the final races of their prep careers.
Leo and Lex Young, who have signed national letters of intent with Stanford, finished second in 4:02.58 and fifth in 4:04.60, respectively, in the championship division of the boys’ mile in the Nike Outdoor Nationals in Eugene, Oregon on Sunday.
Sahlman, who will continue his running career at Northern Arizona University where his older brother Colin just completed his freshman year, finished fifth in the championship division of the boys’ 800 meters in 1:49.11 in the New Balance Nationals Outdoors in Philadelphia on Sunday.
That came a day after he had placed a disappointing 20th overall in the championship division of the mile with a time of 4:13.67.
“It truly has been a thrill,” Lex Young wrote in a text on Monday that confirmed that his high school career was over.
Nico Young, the older brother of Leo and Lex and the runner-up in the men’s race for Northern Arizona in the NCAA Cross Country Championships last year, first helped put Newbury Park on the national prep map in 2019.
First, he posted the fastest boys’ time in the nation that year when he ran 8:40.00 to win the 3,200 meters in the Arcadia Invitational in April. Then, he capped his senior cross country season in December by setting a course record while leading Newbury Park to a 128-132 victory over runner-up Great Oak High of Temecula, California in the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of the California Interscholastic Federation-sanctioned high school track season in 2020. But Young and senior teammate Jace Aschbrenner ran personal bests of 13:50.55 in the 5,000 and 8:44.93 in the 3,200, respectively, while competing in various meets that were not sanctioned by the CIF.
Although there was no CIF-sanctioned prep cross country season in 2020 due to COVID-19, the Newbury Park program produced unprecedented depth during the 2021 track season. That was when the Sahlmans and Youngs (Leo and Lex) gave the Panthers four sub-4:10 milers. In the 3,200 meters, Colin Sahlman, the Youngs, and teammate Daniel Appleford gave them four runners who had run times that were equivalent to breaking 9 minutes in the two-mile run.
Until then, only one high school program — American Fork, Utah in 2017 — had ever had three runners break 4:10 in the mile in the same year. And only two schools — Hammond, Indiana in 1975 and Northport, New York in 2014 — had ever had three runners break 9:00 in the two mile in the same season.
Newbury Park reached its collective zenith during the 2021-22 academic year.
In an attempt to not get bogged down in all the incredibly impressive statistics produced during a cross country season that led some people to call Newbury Park the greatest prep team — in any sport — in history, two performances stand out most.
First, the Panthers swept the first four places in the Division I race of the CIF meet in cross country in November before Colin Sahlman, Leo and Lex Young, and Aaron Sahlman placed 1-2-3-6 in the highly-regarded Garmin RunningLane Championships in Huntsville, Alabama the following week.
The 2022 track season saw Colin Sahlman lower his personal bests to 1:48.07 in the 800 meters, 3:56.24 in the mile, and 8:33.32 in the 3,200 meters while on his way to being selected as the men’s prep athlete of the year by Track & Field News.
Led by Sahlman, Newbury Park had four runners break 4:02 in the mile last year and five runners ran under 8:53 in the 3,200, including three who broke 8:40. And in a superb relay effort indoors in March of 2022, the Sahlmans and Youngs ran 16:29.31 in the four-mile relay in the New Balance Nationals Indoor meet in New York City to obliterate the previous national high school record by more than 22 seconds.
With Colin Sahlman at Northern Arizona last fall, Newbury Park was not quite as dominant in cross country. But Lex Young nonetheless led the Panthers to a 1-2-3 finish and a runaway victory in the Division II race of the CIF meet.
Two weeks later, heavily-favored Newbury Park rolled to a 66-152 victory over runner-up Jesuit of Portland, Oregon in the Nike Cross Nationals.
Leo and Lex Young had uncharacteristically sub-par performances while finishing in 11th and 35th place, respectively, in that race. But Aaron Sahlman, the team’s No. 3 runner all season, placed first with a time of 14:44.5 over the 5,000-meter layout that cut nearly seven seconds off the previous course best set by Nico Young.
A CIF rule that prohibits prep athletes from competing at the high school level once they have competed against collegiate or post-collegiate athletes prevented the Youngs from running in meets such as the Arcadia Invitational this year. But Leo Young nonetheless lowered his personal best to 3:39.39 in the 1,500 meters to move to sixth on the all-time national performer list and Lex Young set a national high school record of 13:34.96 in the 5,000 when he placed 18th in the men’s race of the Los Angeles Grand Prix at UCLA on May 26.
Sahlman had issues with an IT band for part of the season, but he did run a season best of 1:49.07 to win the 800 in the Arcadia Invitational and also lowered his personal best to 4:00.30 in the mile as Newbury Park had a third consecutive year in which its top four runners bettered 4:10 in the mile.
For me, the statistics that best Illustrate the magical run that Newbury Park has had over the last 4½ years are as follows: During the 2019-23 track seasons, seven different Panther runners ran 3,200-meter times that were equivalent to a sub-9:00 two-mile. An eighth runner had a 3,200 best that converts to two miles in 9:00.40, a ninth ran 9:00.44 for two miles indoors, and a 10th clocked a 3,200 best that was equivalent to a 9:05.42 two mile.
On the AIU front: The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced via Twitter on June 12 that quarter-miler Christopher Taylor of Jamaica has been provisionally suspended for “for Evading, Refusing or Failing to Submit to Sample Collection by an Athlete.”
The 23-year-old Taylor placed seventh in the men’s 400 meters in the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon last July after finishing sixth in Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021. He had lowered his personal best to 44.63 seconds in winning the NACAC title in the Bahamas in August.
Information on a link in the AIU tweet states that “A Provisional Suspension imposed in a non-doping case does not in any way abrogate the presumption of innocence and it is not an early determination of guilt. Rather, it is an order made on a temporary basis to safeguard the interests of the sport.”
The timing of the provisional suspension could very well prevent Taylor from competing in the Jamaican championships in Kingston from July 6-9. That meet will act as a qualification meet for the Jamaican team that will compete in the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary from Aug. 19-27.
Sad story gets sadder: An autopsy report for former World champion sprinter Tori Bowie released last week by the Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office in Florida concluded that the 32-year-old who had been found dead in a bed in a home on May 2, had been undergoing labor at the time of her death.
Bowie, who won the women’s 100 meters in the 2017 World Championships in London, also anchored the U.S to victory in the 400 relay in that meet.
She had been found deceased by deputies from a local sheriff’s office who were conducting a welfare check on her because she had not been seen for several days.
The autopsy report, which was written by Associate Medical Examiner Chantel Njiwaji, cited evidence of Bowie undergoing labor when she died. It was estimated that she was eight months pregnant at the time of her death.
Respiratory distress and eclampsia were listed as possible complications that occurred while she was in labor.
Eclampsia, like preeclampsia, is a disorder related to high blood pressure during pregnancy. Eclampsia is the more severe of the two conditions and can include seizures and comas.
Bowie was a native on Sandhill, Mississippi who won a pair of NCAA titles — one indoors and one outdoors — in the long jump for the University of Southern Mississippi in 2011. She began to focus on the sprints in 2014 and placed third in the 100 in the World Championships in Beijing in 2015.
She then won a silver medal in the 100, a bronze in the 200, and a gold as the anchor runner on the victorious U.S. team in the 400 relay in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Her last global title meet was the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, where she placed fourth in the long jump. She also advanced to the semifinals of the 100 , but did not run in her heat.
In memory: Harvey Glance, the fourth-place finisher in the men’s 100 meters in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal and the leadoff runner on the U.S. team that won the 400 relay in that competition, passed away on June 12 at a hospital in Mesa, Arizona. He was 66 and had suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this month.
Glance, a native of Phenix City, Aalabama, had burst onto the national and world scene as an Auburn University freshman who won the 100 and 200 meters in the 1976 NCAA championships before winning the 100 in the U.S. Olympic Trials.
Although the then-19-year-old Glance was disappointed with his fourth-place finish in Montreal, the three sprinters who finished ahead of him — Hasely Crawford of Trinidad and Tobago, Don Quarrie of Jamaica, and Valery Borzov of the Soviet Union — had loads of international experience. Borzov was the defending Olympic champion in the 100 and 200.
Glance twice tied the hand-held world record of 9.9 seconds in the 100 and he also won a second consecutive NCAA title in the event in 1977. He was ranked among the top 10 100 sprinters in the world by Track & Field News five times during his career, paced by a No. 3 ranking in 1979 and a No. 4 ranking in ’76. He also won a gold medal in the second World Athletics Championships in Rome in 1987 when he ran the third leg on the victorious U.S. team that was anchored by Carl Lewis.
In addition to his competitive career, Glance had much success as a coach. He became the first African American head coach in any sport at Auburn when he took over the men’s and women’s track and field programs in 1992. He then served as the head coach at Alabama from 1997-2011. He also served as a coach on several different U.S. teams that competed internationally.
He coached quarter-miler Kirani James of Grenada during his time at Alabama and he continued to work with James after stepping down as a collegiate coach in 2011.
James won the men’s 400 in the 2012 Olympics in London, finished second in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, and third in Tokyo in 2021. He is the only man in history to have won three medals in the 400 in the Olympic Games. He also has a set of medals in the World Championships.