Week in review: NCAA champs continue their roll in Boston
Blanks and Valby post fastest 5,000-meter times in collegiate history two weeks after winning national titles in cross country
Graham Blanks of Harvard University and Parker Valby of the University of Florida are on a roll.
Two weeks after capping off unbeaten cross country seasons with victories in the men’s and women’s races of the NCAA championships in Earlysville, Virginia, the juniors each ran the fastest collegiate 5,000-meter times in history while winning their respective races in the Boston University Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener on Saturday.
Blanks clocked 13 minutes 3.78 seconds in the men’s race after surging into the lead with just under 400 meters left in the contest.
Valby ran 14:56.11 in the women’s event after moving into first place with a little less than a kilometer to go.
“I like to say nothing’s granted, but when you come to BU two weeks after cross a fast time is almost granted,” Blanks said in an interview during the FloTrack broadcast of the meet. “A 13:03, I’m ecstatic. I had the Olympic standard in the back of my mind.”
There was a lot to report on from last week. Therefore, this notes column is on the long side. If this email appears clipped or truncated in your inbox, you should be able to click on “View entire message” to read it in its entirety.
While Blanks’ time smashed the previous collegiate indoor record of 13:08.28 set by Lawi Lalang of Arizona in 2012, it is also faster than the outdoor mark of 13:06.32 set by Abdi Nur of Northern Arizona last year.
In addition, it moved him to sixth on the all-time U.S. performer list, gave him a solid margin of victory over Stanford junior Ky Robinson — who set an Australian record of 13:06.42 in second — and exceeded the qualifying standard of 13:05.00 for the Olympic Games in Paris next August.
Bettering that standard does not guarantee Blanks of a berth on the U.S. team, but it does mean that a top-three finish in the 5,000 in the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, from June 21-30 of next year would put him on the squad that will compete in Paris.
That would not necessarily be the case if he finished in the top three in the Olympic Trials, but had not met the qualifying standard for the Games.
“I knew whoever won that [race] was going to have the NCAA record,” Blanks said in a post-race interview with letsrun.com. “That’s why I played it kind of safe. At the end of the day, I’m an NCAA athlete.”
Blanks, who had run his previous personal best of 13:18.45 in the 5,000 while finishing 11th in the Colyear-Danville meet last year, was content to run toward the back of the lead pack for the first three kilometers on Saturday.
Pacesetter Christian Noble led the field through the first 1,000 meters in 2:37.51 and the first 1,600 in 4:12.62 before dropping out of the race.
Fellow American AJ Ernst then took over the rabbiting duties and came through 2,000 meters in 5:17.03 and 3,000 meters in 7:56.51.
Robinson moved into the lead after Ernst dropped out and when he came through 4,000 meters in 10:34.29 he was closely followed by Sam Atkin of Great Britain and Blanks.
Atkin took the lead with 800 meters to go and Blanks moved past Robinson while keeping his eyes on Atkin.
The Brit was still in the lead with three laps left on the 200-meter track, but Blanks shot past him entering the first turn of the second-to-last lap and he was never seriously challenged for the victory after that as Atkin eventually finished third in 13:06.66.
Robinson, who placed third in the NCAA cross country championships, had run last laps of 54.19 seconds and 55.53 in winning the 10,000 and 5,000 in the NCAA track and field championships in early June. But Blanks simply powered away from him in Boston as he ran his last 800 in 1:57.58, his final 400 in 57.04, and his finishing 200 in 28.34.
Junior Parker Wolfe of North Carolina finished fourth in 13:13.61 and freshman Habtom Samuel of New Mexico placed fifth in 13:14.85 to move to eighth and 10th, respectively, on the all-time collegiate performer list.
Samuel, the runner-up to Blanks in the NCAA cross country championships, also set an Eritrean record with his performance.
“Once he started pushing things, I was like, I gotta go soon,” Blanks said of Atkin in the Flotrack broadcast. “And [with] 400 meters [left], I just went as hard as I could.”
Valby typically runs from the front, but she was content to follow Annie Rodenfels of the Boston Athletic Association for the first 4,000 meters of the race on Saturday.
Rodenfels, who won the women’s title in the USA Track & Field 5-kilometer road championships on Nov. 4, had taken over the lead shortly after the first two laps, She came through the first kilometer in 2:59.97 before clocking 6:00.94 at 2,000 meters, 9:02.59 at 3,0000, and 12:03.20 at 4,000.
Valby, looking very calm and relaxed, moved into the lead about 20 meters after that and simply pulled away from Rodenfels during the remainder of the race. She ran her final kilometer in 2:52.82, her last 800 in 2:17.85, and her finishing 400 in 68.44.
Her 14:56.11 clocking crushed the previous collegiate indoor record of 15:12.22 set by Emily Sisson of Providence in 2015, topped the 15:01.70 mark that Colorado’s Jenny Simpson (nee Barringer) had run on a 300-meter indoor track in 2009, and was also faster than the collegiate outdoor record of 15:03.12 that Katelyn Touhy of North Carolina State had set in May.
In addition, it bettered Valby’s previous personal best of 15:20.10 that she had run while finishing second to Tuohy in the NCAA outdoor track championships in 2022 and moved her to seventh on the all-time U.S. indoor performer list.
Rodenfels finished second in 15:03.97 to move to 14th on the all-time U.S. list, followed by Ella Donaghu of the Nike Union Athletics Club in 15:16.97.
Valby seemed particularly pleased with her performance because she had entered the race with a simple goal of meeting the automatic qualifying standard of 15:20.00 for the NCAA indoor championships in March.
She never imagined breaking the collegiate record in the third indoor race of her life. And running under 15 minutes was definitely not on her mind.
“Honestly, it’s crazy,” she said when asked about her sub-15 clocking in a letsrun.com interview. “I never thought that I would do that.”
Double duty: Nico Young of Northern Arizona had an impressive pair of performances in the Boston University Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener on Saturday.
First, he won the men’s 3,000 meters in 7:37.73 after moving from fourth place to first during the last half-lap on the 200-meter oval. Then he took the third heat of the 5,000 in 13:22.96.
Young, who had finished sixth in the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Earlysville, Virginia, two weeks earlier, moved to third on the all-time collegiate indoor list in the 3,000 and to 12th on the all-time U.S. performer list with a time that crushed his previous best of 7:51.21 from February.
Pacesetter Aidan McCarthy of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo led the field through the first kilometer in 2:35.44 and past 1,600 meters in 4:06.67.
Christian Noble of New Balance then took the field through 2,000 meters in 5:08.33 before dropping out of the race shortly before 2,200 meters.
Canadian Kiernan Lumb assumed the lead at that point and he would maintain it until the last 40 meters of the race.
Young had been in fifth place after two kilometers before moving into fourth with 400 meters left in the race. But he briefly fell back to fifth with a lap and a half left before moving into fourth with 250 meters to go.
Lumb’s closest pursuers were Oklahoma State teammates Ryan Schoppe and Brian Musau as he entered the bell lap.
The trio sped down the backstretch in that order, but Young was moving faster than anyone entering the final turn and he went past Musau and then Schoppe while running in lane two around the bend before surging past Lumb as he entered the final straightaway.
Musau finished second in 7:38.04, followed by Lumb in 7:38.39 and Schoppe in 7:38.80.
Musau and Schoppe moved to fourth and seventh on the all-time collegiate performer list with their times, while Lumb bettered the previous Canadian record of 7:40.11 that had been set by Mo Ahmed in 2016.
Young ran the final kilometer in 2:28.51, his last 400 in 57.56, and his finishing 200 in 27.46.
Who needs barriers?: Olivia Markezich of Notre Dame, the defending NCAA champion in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase, posted the second-fastest time in collegiate indoor history in winning the 3,000 in 8:40.42 in the Boston University Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener on Saturday.
Markezich, who finished third in the NCAA Cross Country Championships two weeks earlier, was in third place when pacesetter Gabija Galvydyte of Oklahoma State came through 1,000 meters in 2:53.58.
She moved into second place after Galvydyte dropped out of the race shortly after the first kilometer and she took over first place after Katie Mitchell of New Balance brought the field through 1,600 meters in 4:40.90 before pulling off the track.
Markezich ran the next 400 meters in 70.54 as she went through 2,000 meters in 5:51.44. She than ran 68.94 and 68.20 for the next two 400-meter segments before capping the race with a final 200 in 31.84.
Her time bettered her previous best of 8:50.48 from last year’s Colyear-Danville meet and ranks second on the all-time collegiate list behind the 8:35.20 clocking set by North Carolina State’s Katelyn Tuohy in February.
It also led a stampede of high-quality times by collegiate competitors as Maia Ramsden of Harvard finished second in 8:46.84, Amina Maatoug of Duke placed third in 8:46.89, and Billah Jepkirui of Oklahoma State was fourth in 8:49.08.
Anna Bennett of Adidas placed fifth in 8:49.87 and she was followed across the finish line by Maddy Elmore of Oregon in 8:50.43, Kaylee Mitchell of Oregon State in 8:51.06, and Flomena Asekol of Florida in 8:52.57.
Defending NCAA 1,500 champion Ramsden moved to sixth on the all-time collegiate performer list with her performance. Maatoug now ranks seventh, with Jepkirui 10th, Elmore 14th, Mitchell 16th and Asekol 18th.
Aiming high: Sisay Lemma was not the epitome of a runner on a hot streak entering the Valencia Marathon in Spain on Sunday. But he was not surprised when he ran 2 hours 1 minute 48 seconds to lower the course record and become the fourth man in history to better 2:02 in the event.
The veteran Ethiopian marathoner, who will turn 33 next week, had dropped out of three of his previous six marathons entering the race. His most recent DNF (did not finish) had come in the Tokyo Marathon in March, but he had followed that with a second-place time of 2:06:26 in the Prague Marathon in May and was confident of running substantially faster while racing over the flat and fast course on Valencia for the first time.
You can click here to read my daily report about Sunday’s Valencia Marathon in Spain.
He was amongst a lead pack of approximately 12 or 13 runners who followed a pair of pacesetters through 10 kilometers in 28:55.
The lead group had been reduced to eight runners when the pacesetters came through 20 kilometers in 57:24 and the halfway mark in 60:35. But the front pack was down to Lemma, compatriot Dawit Wolde, and Kibiwott Kandie of Kenya when pacesetter Hillary Kipkoech came though 30 kilometers in 1:26:04 after running the previous 10 kilometers in 28:40.
Kipkoech pulled out of the race shortly after that and Lemma had a two-second lead over Wolde and a four-second advantage over Kandie when he came through 35 kilometers in 1:40:41 after running the previous 5,000 meters in 14:37.
He then put the victory away over the next five kilometers as he covered that segment of the race in 14:31 for a 40-kilometer split of 1:55:12 and a 58-second lead over second-place Wolde.
His advantage would only grow in the final two-plus kilometers of the race as his 2:01:48 clocking lowered the course record pf 2:01:53 set by Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya last year and put Lemma nearly a minute and a half in front of second-place Alexander Mutiso of Kenya, whose 2:03:11 clocking was a personal best.
Wolde also lowered his personal best with a third-place time of 2:03:48 that left him 31 seconds in front of 41-year-old Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, who set a masters (age 40 and older) world record of 2:04:19 in fourth place.
“At kilometre 15 I tried to go at a world record pace but the pacemakers were being irregular at that pace and I decided not to go for the world record but for the race record,” Lemma said in a post on the Valencia Marathon site. “At kilometre 25 I realised that I wasn’t going to be able to go under 2:01.”
Compare and contrast: In his brief, but brilliant three-race career in the marathon, Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya has made a name for himself by putting the hammer down from the 30- to 40-kilometer mark.
His dominance during that segment of the race was clearly evident in the Valencia Marathon on Sunday when the race leaders were 15 seconds ahead of what Kiptum had run for the first 20 kilometers during his world record race of 2:00:35 in the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 8, as well as 27 seconds up on his split at 30 kilometers.
However, Valencia winner Sisay Lemma’s 40-kilometer split of 1:55:12 was 49 seconds slower than Kiptum’s 1:54:23 clocking in Chicago.
The reason for the huge swing?
Kiptum clocked a sizzling 27:52 from 30 to 40 kilometers in Chicago while Ethiopian Lemma ran 29:08 over that same segment of the race in Valencia.
Confidence boost: Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia seemed elated after finishing fourth in the men’s race of the Valencia Marathon in Spain on Sunday and for good reason.
The man who many regard as the greatest all-around distance runner in history had become the first masters (age 40 and older) runner to break 2:05 in the marathon with his time of 2:04:19 and he had moved up seven places during the second half of the race after coming through the halfway mark in 60:58.
It was the third fastest time of the 41-year-old Bekele’s career and his fastest since he ran a national record of 2:01:41 in winning the Berlin Marathon in 2019. His performance, which lowered the previous masters world record of 2:05:10 set by Tadese Abraham of Switzerland when he finished 11th in the Berlin Marathon in September, also came after Bekele had dropped out of the London Marathon in April.
In an Instagram post he wrote the following: Happy to be back fighting for the podium again! Very satisfied with my time of 2:04:19, thank you so much Valencia for the warm welcome and the cheers along the course. See you soon for more! 💪
Reality check: One of the more sobering sights during the Valencia Marathon in Spain on Sunday occurred just before the 2-hour and 9-minue mark when Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda struggled toward a 37th-place finish in the final 50 meters of the 42.195-kilometer (26 miles 385 yards) race.
Although the 27-year-old Cheptegei was running in his first marathon, many experts regarded him as one of the pre-race favorites due to his stellar credentials at shorter distances that included three consecutive titles in the 10,000 meters in the World Athletics Championships, a gold medal in the 5,000 in the Olympic Games in 2021, a victory in the World Cross Country Championships in 2019, and world records of 12:35.36 in the 5,000 and 26:11.00 in the 10,000.
He and his coach both said before the race that they thought he was ready to run a time of 2:03:00 to 2:03:30.
He was at the rear of a lead pack of seven runners when he went through the halfway mark in 60:36, but he began to drop back of the leaders a little while after that.
He was a minute and 21 seconds behind the front group when he passed 30 kilometers in seventh place with a split of 1:27:25 and his deficit was approaching three minutes when he came through 35 kilometers in ninth place in a time of 1:43:26 after running the previous five kilometers in 16:01.
However, he slowed further after that and his final time of 2:08:59 left him more than seven minutes behind the winning 2:01:48 clocking by Sesay Lemma of Ethiopia.
The condition that Cheptegei was in at the end of the race was somewhat reminiscent of the 2017 World Cross Country Championships in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. It was there that Cheptegei, perhaps overly excited while running in front of a vocal home crowd, led the field through the first eight kilometers of the 9.9-kilometer race on a warm day before finishing 30th after struggling to average a pace of even 10 minutes per mile in the final few hundred meters of the race.
In a Sunday post on Instagram, Cheptegei wrote that the marathon was a new chapter in his running career and he was proud he had finished the race, even though his time “didn’t match up with what we had trained for.”
He then concluded the post with the following text: “I have had disappointment before and it always made me come back stronger, it is the most powerful lesson in life. More marathon chapters will be written in the years to come. For now I will first go home, enjoy some time off with my family before the preparations for the Paris Olympics will start. I want to thank the incredible number of fans who cheered me on today, the organisation for their trust in me and my team who always got my back.”
Focusing on herself: Worknesh Degefa of Ethiopia made a triumphant return to the world of elite marathon running on Sunday when she ran a personal best of 2:15:51 to win the women’s division of the Valencia Marathon in Spain.
The 33-year-old mother of two was running in her first marathon — and second race at any distance — since January of 2020, yet her time made her only the seventh woman in history to have run under 2:16 in the event and crushed her previous best of 2:17:41 that she had set it in finishing second in the Dubai Marathon in the United Arab Emirates in 2019.
It also came after she had stopped focusing on compatriot — and pre-race favorite — Almaz Ayana with a little more than 12 kilometers left in the race.
Ayana, a former world-record-holder in the women’s 10,000 meters and a gold medalist in that event in the 2016 Olympic Games and the 2017 World Athletics Championships, had run 2:17:20 in winning her marathon debut in Amsterdam last year. In addition, she was the woman who had pushed the pace through the 10-, 20-, and 30-kilometer marks on Sunday.
However, Degefa briefly broke away from Ayana in the 31st kilometer before leaving her behind for good with about nine kilometers left in the race.
“From the 30th kilometre onwards I started to push hard, running my race and not looking at Ayana,” Degefa said in a post on the Valencia Marathon site. “I decided to run my race without looking at my rivals.”
Her focus was crucial to her victory as the 32-year-old Ayana never let up on her way to a second-place time of 2:16:22 that made her the eighth-fastest woman in history.
National records galore: According to the Valencia Marathon site, seven men and 13 women set national records while competing on the flat and fast course in Spain’s third-largest city on Sunday.
The three fastest national records in the men’s race were achieved by Tariku Novales of Spain, who finished 11th in 2:05:48, Shokhrukh Davlyatov of Uzbekistan, who placed 18th in 2:07:02, and Jami Segundo of Ecuador, who finished 38th in 2:09:05.
The three fastest national records in the women’s race came from Spaniard Majida Maayouf, who placed fifth in 2:21:27, Turk Sultan Haydar, who finished sixth, also in 2:21:27, and Italian Sofia Yaremchuk, who placed ninth in 2:23:16.
Struggles continue: Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia dropped out of her second marathon in her last three races in the Valencia Marathon in Spain on Sunday.
The 32-year-old Dibaba, who had set a world record of 3:50.07 in the women’s 1,500 meters in 2015, had run 2:18:05 in finishing second in her marathon debut in Amsterdam last year.
However, she dropped out of the London Marathon in April and finished sixth in 2:21:47 in the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 8.
It was a little surprising to see her toeing the line in Valencia only eight weeks after she had run in Chicago, and she was in seventh place in the women’s division at the 15-, 20-, and 25-kilometer marks on Sunday before dropping out of the race at some point after that.
She had come through 20 kilometers in 1:05:33, which was a little more than a minute and half behind the 1:03:58 clocking set by leaders Worknesh Degefa, Almaz Ayana, and Hiwot Gebrekidan of Ethiopia.
Backing up its ranking: The boys’ team from San Clemente High School in California backed up its No. 8 national ranking by dyestat.com when it finished eighth in the Nike Cross Nationals meet in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday.
Paced by the 40th-place finish of senior Brett Ephraim, the Tritons totaled 263 points in the 22-team race to finish just ahead of No. 9 Riverton of Utah with 266 and No. 11— and Orange Country rival — Dana Hills of Dana Point with 267.
Great Oak of Temecula, which had finished second to San Clemente in the Division I races of the CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) Southern Section and State championships, placed 17th with 393 points.
Herriman High in Utah, the No. 4-ranked team in the nation, won the boys’ team title in the Nike Cross Nationals meet with a 73-point total, followed by top-ranked American Fork of Utah with 100, No. 2 Carroll Senior in Southlake, Texas, with 138, and No. 5 Belen Jesuit Prep of Miami with 187.
Ephraim ran 15:46.4 over a sloppy 5,000-meter layout at Glendoveer Golf Course that had been drenched by an overnight rain. Senior Pierce Clark was San Clemente’s No. 2 runner as he finished 68th in 16:05.0.
Junior Evan Noonan and senior Jayden Hernandez were Dana Hills’ Nos. 1 and 2 runners as they placed 45th — in 15:51.0 — and 54th — in 15:54.0 — for the Dolphins.
Noonan had entered the race as the No. 9-ranked runner in the nation by dyestat.com after rolling to victories in the Division III races of the CIF Southern Section and State championships.
Senior Gabe Rodriguez was Great Oak’s top finisher. He placed 98th in 16:21.4.
Rising to the occasion I: Jason Parra of Millikan High in Long Beach capped his senior season with an eighth-place finish in the boys’ race of the Nike Cross Nationals meet in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday.
The Notre Dame-bound Parra was the top Californian in the race that had 201 finishers.
He clocked 15:25.9 over a sloppy 5,000-meter layout at Glendoveer Golf Course that had been drenched by an overnight night.
Senior Josh Bell of Templeton and junior Eli Fitchen-Young of Santa Cruz were the No. 2 and 3 Californian finishers in the race as they placed ninth in 15:26.6 and 19th in 15:33.6, respectively.
Emmanuel Perez of Cathedral in Los Angeles, who had won his second consecutive Division IV title in the CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) State championships on Nov. 25, struggled on Saturday as he finished 96th in 16:21.1.
JoJo Jourdan of Olympus in Holladay, Utah, won the boys’ race in 15:16.5.
He was followed by fellow seniors Cameron Todd of Brebeuf Jesuit Prep in Indianapolis and Nathan Niel of Bozeman, Montana, who placed second and third, respectively, with times of 15:18.5 and 15:18.6, respectively.
Tough day: The girls’ teams from JSerra of San Juan Capistrano and Santiago High of Corona underperformed in the Nike Cross Nationals meet in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday.
Running in cool conditions on a course that had been drenched by heavy rains the night before, JSerra finished 13th with 328 points and Santiago placed 19th with 448 points in the 22-team race.
Air Academy of Colorado Springs, Colorado, placed first with 61 points, followed by Niwot High of Colorado with 72, Denver with 163, and Lone Peak of Highland, Utah, with 201.
JSerra, which won its third consecutive Division III title in the CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno on Nov. 25, had entered the meet as the No. 5-ranked team in the nation by dyestat.com. Santiago, which edged three-time defending champion Buchanan of Clovis for its first state Division I title, had been ranked ninth.
Sophie Polay was JSerra’s top finisher in 53rd place with a time of 18:37.4 over the 5,000-meter course at Glendoveer Golf Course and sophomore Kaylah Davis was the Lions’ No. 2 runner in 121st at 19:28.7.
Santiago was led by junior Rylee Blade, who placed 76th in 19:00.5, and sophomore Braelyn Combe, who finished 114th in 19:21.0.
Blade had been the No. 5-ranked runner in the nation by dyestat.com entering the race, but the Southern Section and State Division I champion never got untracked. She was in 49th place after the first kilometer of the race and she fell back from there as the race proceeded.
Rising to the occasion II: Holly Barker of Trabuco Hills High in Mission Viejo was one runner from California’s Southern Section who performed extremely well in the girls’ race of the Nike Cross Nationals meet in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday.
Barker had placed a distant second to fellow junior Rylee Blade of Santiago of Corona in the Division I races of both the CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) Southern Section and State cross country championships. But she was the No. 2 Californian in the meet at Glendoveer Golf Course as she placed 12th with a time of 17:49.0 over the sloppy, rain-soaked 5,000-meter layout.
The top Californian was sophomore Jaelyn Williams of Eastlake High in Chula Vista, who placed seventh in 17:39.9. She had finished fourth in the Division I race of the state meet, 43 seconds behind first-place Blade and 26 seconds back of second-place Barker.
While Williams and Barker were two Californians who performed above expectations in the meet, there were others who struggled by their standards.
Sadie Englehardt of Ventura, the Southern Section and State Division II champion and the No. 3-ranked runner in the nation by dyestat.com, finished 26th in 18:14.0.
The Cougar junior went out hard as she often does. But she began to drop back after being in third place after the first kilometer and in eighth place after 2,000 meters. She was 18.4 seconds out of the lead at that point in the race and she finished more than a minute behind winner Addy Ritzenhein of Niwot, Colorado.
The sophomore and daughter of three-time Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein clocked 17:10.4 after running a terrific final two kilometers. Her father had won consecutive Foot Locker national cross country titles for Rockford High in Michigan in 1999 and 2000.
Addy Ritzenhein and senior Bethany Michalak of team champion Air Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, were nearly 15 seconds behind first-place Elizabeth Leachman of Champion High in Boerne, Texas, at the 3,000-meter mark. But Ritzenhein had reduced her deficit to less than a second a kilometer later and she swept past fellow sophomore Leachman shortly after that.
Michalak finished second in 17:16.4 while Leachman placed 15th in 17:53.6.
Punching their tickets: Although most of the top runners from the Southern Section of California took part in the Nike Cross Nationals meet in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday, three runners from the section placed among the top 10 finishers in the girls’ race of the Foot Locker West Regional at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California.
Those runners were junior Maya DeBrouwer of La Canada High School, who placed fourth with a time of 18:02 over the 5,000-meter course, senior Melisse Djomby Enyawe of Corona del Mar in Newport Beach, who finished fifth, also in a time of 18:02, and junior Reena Hsieh of Arcadia, who crossed the finish line in 10th place with an 18:12 clocking.
The top 10 finishers in the girls’ and boys’ races qualified for the Foot Locker national championships that will be held at Morley Field in San Diego this coming Saturday (Dec. 9).
The 40-runner girls’ race will start at 12:15 p.m.. Eastern Standard Time, followed by the boys’ contest at 1 p.m.
The meet will be livestreamed by runnerspace.com, starting at 11 a.m.
In the West regional on Saturday, sophomore Chiara Dailey of La Jolla, California, was the runaway winner.
The Division IV champion in the CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno on Nov. 25, Dailey clocked 17:42 while finishing 16 seconds in front of in of victory over runner-up Eleanor Raker of Galena High in Reno, Nevada.
DeBrouwer had finished fourth in the Division IV race of the state championships, while Djomby Enyawe finished sixth at the Division III level and Hsieh was seventh in Division I.
No runners from the Southern Section placed among the top 10 finishers in the boys’ race of the West Regional.
The top three finishers from the section were senior Micah Grossman of Ventura in 14th place (15:51), junior Griffin Kushen of Tesoro in 16th (15:53), and senior Owen Franck of Mira Costa in Manhattan Beach in 20th (15:56).
Joshua Chu of Ponderosa High in Shingle Springs, California, won the boys’ race in 15:23. He was followed by fellow seniors Davis Rydman of Layton, Utah, in 15:24 and Grant Morgenfeld of Palo Alto, California, in 15:25.
Chu had finished third in the Division III race of CIF State championships while Morgenfeld placed eighth in the Division II contest.
U.S. stop on continental tour: Adriaan Wildschutt of South Africa and Katie Wasserman of the U.S. were the winners of the men’s and women’s 8,000-meter races in the Cross Champs meet in Austin, Texas, last Thursday.
It was the seventh gold level meet of the 2023-24 season on the World Athletics Cross Country Tour.
Wildschutt, the runner-up in the 2021 NCAA Cross Country Championships for Florida State University, led a five-runner lead pack through the three mile-mark in 13:12. The front group was down to Wildschutt, Kenyans Edwin Kurgat and Wesley Kiptoo, and Great Britain’s Charles Hicks when it went through four miles in 17:34.
The 25-year-old Wildschutt and Kurgat soon broke away from Kiptoo and Hicks, the 2022 NCAA champion for Stanford, before the South African surged again to gap Kurgat on his way to a winning time of 22:08.
Kurgat finished second in 22:12, followed by Kiptoo and Hicks, who were each credited with times of 22:15.
Wasserman, 25, was always amongst the leaders in the women’s race as she clocked 5:35 for the first mile before going through two miles in 10:57 (5:22), three miles in 16:17 (5:20), and four miles in 21:33 (5:16).
Wasserman, fellow Americans Katie Izzo and Abby Nichols, and Kenyan Mercy Chelangat soon formed a lead group of four runners. After Nichols dropped back, Wasserman and Izzo broke away from Chelangat before Wasserman opened up a lead on Izzo that she was able to maintain to the finish line.
Her time of 26:50 left her two seconds in front of Izzo, while Chelangat, a two-time NCAA champion in cross country and track for Alabama, finished third in 26:55, followed by Nichols in 27:09.
“I’ve never run an 8k before so I was like, I have to make sure I can make it to the final lap before I decide to push,” Wasserman said in a World Athletics post. “Then I was feeling good, so I was like okay, it’s time to go!”
On the performance enhancing drug front I: Tsehay Gemechu of Ethiopia, the 11th fastest women’s marathon runner in history, was provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) last Thursday for use of a prohibited or unidentified prohibited substance.
The AIU stated that Gemechu’s biological passport indicated possible doping by her.
The provisional suspension temporarily prohibits her from competing until a final decision is reached in her case that will be presented at a hearing conducted under the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules or the Integrity Code of Conduct.
An athlete’s biological passport, or ABP, is determined by monitoring specific biological levels over time that could indirectly reveal the effects of doping.
The 24-year-old Gemechu, who ran a personal best of 2:16:56 to finish second in the Tokyo Marathon in March, had been entered in Sunday’s Valencia Marathon in Spain before her provisional suspension forced her to withdraw from the race.
Gemechu was one of four Ethiopians who started the women’s marathon in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, in August. But she dropped out of the race around the 33-kilometer mark shortly after she and countrywomen Amane Beriso, Gotytom Gebreslase, and Yalemzerf Yehualaw had broken away from a six-runner lead pack.
Gemechu had previously finished fourth in 5,000 meters in the World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, in October of 2019 after placing sixth in the World Cross Country Championships in Aarhus, Denmark, in March of that year.
On the performance enhancing drug front II: Brenda Chebet of Kenya, the silver medalist in the women’s 1,500 meters in the World Athletics U20 (under 20) Championships in Cali, Colombia last year, has been issued a three-year ban from competition by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIG).
The 19-year-old Chebet tested positive for the steroid methasterone and its metabolites in a sample that was taken on July 8 of this year in conjunction with the Kenyan trials for the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, in August.
Chebet had been named to Kenya’s world championship team after finishing second in the 1,500 in the trials race in Nairobi, but she was later replaced by Purity Chepkirui, who was eliminated in her first-round heat in Budapest.
According to the AIU, Chebet has admitted to breaking anti-doping rules and her three-year ban — which retroactively started on Sept. 3 — will run through Sept. 2 of 2026.