Week in Review: Running on empty to win
Misoi, Kaptich win marathon titles in Frankfurt despite struggling in latter stages
Kenyan and Ethiopian runners have been so dominant in the men’s and women’s marathon in the last dozen years that top competitors from those countries can seem indefatigable when contesting the 26-mile 385-yard race.
I have watched in amazement during the last two months as Kenyan or Ethiopian runners have won the men’s or women’s divisions of the Berlin, London, Chicago, and Amsterdam marathons while appearing mostly impervious to the pain and suffering afflicting many of the other top runners in the world in the final miles of the grueling test of endurance.
Yet I got a reminder during the Frankfurt Marathon in Germany on Sunday that even some of the best runners from arguably the top marathoning country in the world are human, as winners Brimin Misoi and Selly Kaptich of Kenya slowed considerably in the latter stages of the race.
Each of them won their respective divisions by more than a minute, but in distance-running parlance, they were running on empty down the stretch.
Misoi, who ran a personal best of 2 hours 6 minutes 11 seconds, had taken control of the men’s race by running the five-kilometer stretch from 30-35 kilometers in 14:49. But he ran 50 seconds slower over the next five kilometers and slowed further over the final 2.2 kilometers.
Kaptich, who ran 2:23:11, took charge of the women’s contest by running 16:18 for kilometers 25-30, But her ensuing five-kilometer splits were 17:27 and 18:30, and she ran the final 2.2 kilometers at 19:20 pace.
She was laboring enough toward the end of the race that one of the men acting as a pacesetter for her motioned for her to pull alongside of him a few times in the final two kilometers of the race, but she struggled to do so.
Warming temperatures that hit 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit) near the end of the race most likely contributed to their struggles. But neither Misoi or Kaptich mentioned that factor in their comments in The Star newspaper based in Nairobi.
In fact, they both spoke, surprisingly to me, of finishing well in the final kilometers.
However, 2004 Olympic champion Stefano Baldini of Italy, who was in Frankfort for the race, spoke admiringly of what Misoi had accomplished.
“Brimin ran a really strong race today in tough conditions; it was an impressive performance,” he said. “Because of the high temperatures it was more like a championship race in August. Anyone who can cope with such conditions so well is well prepared to contest medals in peak summer.”
Overlooked factor: Misoi was not regarded as one of the pre-race favorites in Frankfurt because his personal best of 2:08:30 was slower than the personal bests of several men in the race.
But Misoi had produced that time in May in winning a marathon in Nairobi, which is nearly 5,900 feet (1,800 meters) above sea level. The oxygen content of the air at that altitude is significantly lower than at sea level, making it more difficult to excel in endurance events.
The pre-race favorite mantle fell to Gebru Redahgne of Ethiopia, with Martin Kosgey of Kenya being the sentimental favorite due to his four previous top-four finishes in Frankfurt.
While the 22-year-old Redahgne had run a personal best of 2:05:58 in winning the Barcelona Marathon in May, Kosgey had clocked a personal best of 2:06:41 in finishing second in Frankfurt in 2018. He had also placed second in the race in 2016, and fourth in 2017 and ’19, the last time it had been held before Sunday due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Both runners spoke of setting personal bests in the days before the race, but Kosgey ended up finishing fifth in 2:10:22 and Redahgne placed 11th in 2:12:49.
They were amongst the lead pack of runners who came through 25 kilometers in 1:14:27, which projected to a finish time of 2:05:40. But they were more than a minute behind Misoi and pacesetter Samuel Mailu of Kenya when that pair came though 30 kilometers in 1:28:44 following a five-kilometer segment of 14:17, the fastest of the race.
Misoi broke away from Mailu during the next couple of kilometers, but rather than drop out of the race as pacesetters typically do, Mailu continued on and finished second in 2:07:19 in his debut marathon.
Ethiopians Derese Ulfata and Balew Derseh finished third and fourth in 2:07:30 and 2:09:21, respectively.
High ambitions: Like Redahgne and Kosgey on the men’s side, the 37-year-old Kaptich entered the women’s race intent on lowering her personal best of 2:21:06. But she said she was also looking to “attack the course record” of 2:19:10 set by Valary Jemeli of Kenya in 2019.
She was on pace to run 2:19:20 when she came through the halfway mark in 1:09:40, and her projected time was 2:18:54 when she came through 30 kilometers in 1:38:45. But she began to slow shortly after that as the stiff pace took a toll on her.
Kenyans Helah Kiprop and Jackline Chepngeno, who did not go out with the lead group of women, finished second and third in 2:24:40 and 2:25:14, respectively.
They were followed by Ukranian-born Sofiia Yaremchuk of Italy in fourth (personal best of 2:25:36) and Caroline Jepchirchir of Kenya in fifth (2:27:58).
Impressive figures: The statistical dominance of the marathon by Kenyan and Ethiopian runners is something to behold:
Since 2010, men and women runners born in Kenya or Ethiopia have combined to garner 204 of the available 220 top-10 spots in the world rankings by Track & Field News;
Forty-seven of the 50 fastest men’s marathon runners in history were born in Kenya or Ethiopia;
Forty-two of the 50 fastest women’s marathon runners in history were born in Kenya or Ethiopia;
Jaouad Gharib of Morocco – in 2005 – was the last runner from outside of Kenya or Ethiopia to rank first in the world in the men’s marathon;
Irina Mikitenko of Germany – in 2009 – was the last runner from outside of Kenya or Ethiopia to rank first in the world in the women’s marathon.
On the performance enhancing drug front: Natalya Antyukh of Russia, who won the gold medal in the women’s 400-meter hurdles in the 2012 Olympic Games in London, could have that result officially nullified in the near future.
Historical evidence previously recovered from the database of a testing laboratory in Moscow has led to a ruling that would expunge all of her performances from July of 2012 through June of 2013 because she was taking performance enhancing drugs during that time.
Antyukh, who was 31 when she finished seven hundredths of a second ahead of silver medalist Lashinda Demus of the U.S. in the Olympics in August of 2012, has 45 days to appeal the decision. She is already serving a four-year ban that nullified any of her performances from July of 2013 through December of 2015.
If the ruling stands, Demus would become the official gold medalist, with Zuzana Hejnova of the Czech Republic and Kaliese Spencer of Jamaica moving into the silver- and bronze-medal positions after initially finishing third and fourth.
“I have mixed emotions about it all,” Demus wrote in an email that was part of an NBC Sports post. “I do believe that if, in fact, there was doping involved with anyone in the Olympics that they should be stripped of their medal. With everything being said it looks like this is the case for my race. I’m not afraid to say that I then deserve the official title, medal, recognition, and missed compensation that goes along with it all. I wouldn’t want any athlete to go through this same situation and I hope that keeping athletes honest in our sport stays at the forefront for those who sacrifice a good part of their life to be great at it.”
Antyukh is on the verge of being the fifth Russian track and field athlete to have their gold-medal performance from London nullified due to doping violations.
The four who have already been stripped of their first-place finishes are men’s high jumper Ivan Ukhov, women’s 800-meter runner Mariya Savinova, women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase runner Yuliya Zaripova, and women’s hammer thrower Tatyana Lysenko.
Four other women from Russia have also previously had their medal-winning performances from the 2012 Olympics nullified.
They are Datya Pishchalnikova, who initially won the silver medal in the discus, and Svetlana Shkolina, Yevgeniya Kolodko, and Tatyana Chernova, who originally won bronze medals in the high jump, shot put, and heptathlon, respectively.
In addition, a silver-medal winning performance in the women’s 1,600-meter relay had been nullified because team member Antonina Krivoshapka, who originally finished sixth in the 400, had been found guilty of doping violations. Antyukh was also a member of that team.
All of the penalties stem from a two-part report published in 2016 in which Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, presented evidence that more than 1,000 Russian athletes had benefitted from a state-sponsored doping program between 2011-15 in which test samples were covered up. The program helped athletes who competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow, and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Moving forward: Katelyn Tuohy and Kelsey Chmiel of North Carolina State University finished first and second in the Atlantic Coast Conference Cross Country Championships at Panorama Farms in Earlysville, Virginia, last Friday, but the top-ranked Wolfpack got a scare from No. 6-ranked Notre Dame before prevailing by a 34-38 score.
Tuohy and Chmiel had also finished first and second in the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational two weeks earlier when defending NCAA champion NC State tied No. 2-ranked New Mexico for first place, 80-80, before winning the team title on a tiebreaker.
The individual victory in the ACC meet was the third in three races this season for Tuohy, a sophomore who has stamped herself as the favorite to win the women’s individual title in the NCAA Championships in Stillwater, Oklahoma, on Nov. 19.
As she did in her previous two victories, Tuohy powered away from her closest pursuers – in this case Chmiel – in the final kilometer of the race. Her time of 19:08.9 was a course record for the 6,000-meter layout and gave her a comfortable margin of victory over Chmiel, who ran 19:20.0.
NC State also received a fifth-place finish from Samantha Bush (19:45.7), but Notre Dame made things close in the team race by placing four runners among the top eight finishers, led by Olivia Markezich’s third-place effort of 19:29.7.
NCAA title challenger?: Parker Valby could be one of the runners with the best chance of challenging Tuohy in the NCAA meet as the Florida sophomore won the Southeastern Conference title in Oxford, Mississippi, last Friday.
Valby, runner-up to Tuohy in the 5,000 meters in the NCAA Track and Field Championships in June, ran 18:25.7 over the 6,000-meter course to defeat runner-up Mercy Chelangat of Alabama by (18:33.7) by nearly eight seconds.
Chelangat, a senior from Kenya who led the No. 7-ranked Crimson Tide to its first team title since 1987, was the runner-up in the NCAA Cross Country Championships last year and won the 2020 individual title when the meet was postponed until March of last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dominance continues: New Mexico won its 15th consecutive Mountain West Conference title last Friday as the No. 2-ranked Lobos had three of the top four finishers and five of the top 10.
Amelia Mazza-Downie, a sophomore from Australia, clocked a winning 19:39.3 over the 6,000-meter course at Jacoby Golf Course in Laramie, Wyoming, which has an elevation of nearly 7,200 feet (2,200 meters).
Sophomore Yasmin Marghini of Boise State placed second in 19:41.6, followed by New Mexico’s Emma Heckel (19:42.8) and Gracelyn Larkin (19:49.7) in third and fourth place.
New Mexico had placed second to NC State in the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational on Oct. 14 before finishing second to the Wolfpack on the tiebreaker in the Nuttycombe Invitational.
Good day for the Cowboys: Oklahoma State won its second consecutive men’s and women’s titles in the Big 12 Conference meet at Lubbock (TX) Christian University’s cross-country course, but Ceili McCabe of West Virginia defeated OSU’s Taylor Roe in a highly anticipated clash in the women’s race.
McCabe, a Canadian who finished third in the NCAA Championships last year, clocked a winning 20:08.4 over the 6,000-meter course. Fellow junior Roe, fifth in the NCAA meet, ran 20:10.8.
OSU, the No. 3-ranked team in the nation, had six of the top nine finishers while posting a 22-49 victory over runner-up West Virginia. Freshmen Billah Jepkirui and Natalie Cook placed third and fourth in 20:16.0 and 20:21.9, respectively, for Oklahoma State.
In the men’s race, junior Alex Maier and sophomore Rory Leonard placed first and second for OSU as the No. 4-ranked Cowboys had five of the top seven finishers while posting a 21-point total.
Maier clocked 23:55.3 over the 8,000-meter course with Leonard at 24:10.6.
Lumberjack sweep: Northern Arizona won everything possible in the Big Sky Conference Championships at the Fairways Golf Course in Cheney, Washington, last Friday.
Sophomore Nico Young was a runaway winner in the men’s race as No. 3-ranked and two-time defending NCAA champion Northern Arizona placed five runners in the top seven finishers while recording a 19-41 victory over second-place and No. 21-ranked Montana State.
The No. 4-ranked Lumberjacks also swept the individual and team titles in the women’s race as sophomore Elise Stearns led NAU to a 1-2-4-7-8-9 finish and a 22-69 victory over second-place Idaho.
Young, who is expected to contend for the individual title at the NCAA Championships, ran 22:31.5 over the 8,000-meter course to finish more than 25 seconds ahead of junior teammate Drew Bosley, who placed second in 22:57.1.
Stearns ran 16:25.3 over the 5,000-meter course in the women’s race to finish more than 10 seconds ahead of junior teammate Annika Reiss, who placed second in 16:36.1.
Another clean sweep: BYU matched Northern Arizona’s performance in the Big Sky meet when its runners rolled to a pair of team and individual titles in the West Coast Conference Championships at Fernhill Park in Portland, Oregon, last Friday.
BYU junior Casey Clinger won the men’s race to lead the No. 2-ranked Cougars to a 1-2-4-5-6-7 finish and a 18-69 victory over second-place Gonzaga.
Clinger, who has finished 13th and 8th in the last two NCAA title meets, ran 21:59.4 over a very fast 8,000-meter course, with senior teammate Brandon Garnica placing second in 22:08.9.
In the women’s meet, senior Aubrey Ferntheway ran a winning 19:47.2 over the 6,000-meter course to pace No. 5-ranked BYU to a 30-65 victory over second-place San Francisco.
Another impressive outing: Stanford sophomore Charles Hicks won his second consecutive individual men’s title as the top-ranked Cardinal rolled to its fourth championship in the last five years in the Pacific 12 Conference meet at UC Riverside last Friday.
Hicks, who placed fourth in the NCAA meet last November, clocked 22:30.9 over the 8,000-meter course to finish more than six seconds ahead of Oregon senior Aaron Bienenfeld, who ran 22:37.2 in second place.
Stanford had five of the top seven finishers while rolling to a 22-61 victory over No. 10-ranked Colorado in second place.
Cardinal sophomore Ky Robinson, who had outkicked Young and Hicks for the Nuttycombe Invitational title, placed sixth in 22:55.3.
Postseason honors: Colin Sahlman, a freshman at Northern Arizona, has been honored by Track & Field News as its Boys Athlete of the Year for 2022 based on his performances as a senior for Newbury Park High School in California.
Sahlman is the ninth athlete from the Southern Section, the largest of 10 sections in California, to have been selected as the Boys Athlete of the Year, which was first awarded for the 1947 season.
As the leader of a stellar Newbury Park distance program that had an unprecedented four runners break 4:02 in the mile and five run under 9:00 in the 3,200 meters, Sahlman displayed superb range as he ranked first in the nation in the two mile, second in the mile, and third in the 800 meters.
He ran personal bests of 1:48.07 in the 800, 3:56.24 in the mile, and 8:33.32 in the 3,200, which converts to a time of 8:36.30 for two miles.
His yearly nation-leading times in the mile and 3,200 moved him to third on the all-time national high school lists in both events. His 800 clocking ranked fourth on the national performer list for the season.
Junior twins Lex and Leo Young of Newbury Park also earned all-American honors in the two mile as they ranked second and fifth in that event.
Lex ran a personal best of 8:35.72 in the 3,200 – which converts to a two mile in 8:38.72 – to finish second to Sahlman’s 8:34.99 clocking in the Arcadia Invitational. Leo ran 8:39.57 for 3,200 meters – equivalent to an 8:42.59 two mile – before ending his season prematurely in April following a sub-par effort in the Arcadia Invitational due to a severe sinus infection.
Newbury Park also earned a No. 1 national ranking in the four-mile relay as the Youngs, Colin Sahlman and his junior brother Aaron set a national high school record of 16:29.31 in winning the New Balance Nationals Indoor meet in New York City in March. Their time crushed the previous national best by more than 32 seconds.
For good measure, a Newbury Park team of the Sahlmans, Lex Young, and Zaki Blunt ranked third in the distance medley relay as their state-record 9:55.24 clocking in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in Walnut, California, in April was the fastest outdoor time in the nation this year and moved them to seventh on the all-time national list.
Double state sprint champion Rodrick Pleasant of Serra High School in Gardena was one of three other Southern Section athletes who earned all-American honors by ranking amongst the top five performers in their respective events.
Pleasant ranked fourth in the 100 after running a state record of 10.14 to move into a tie for eighth on the all-time national performer list with Noah Lyles, the two-time defending World champion in the 200 who graduated from Williams High in Alexandria, Virginia, in 2016.
Pleasant, who is now a senior, ranked second in the 200 and his best of 20.40 moved him to second on the all-time California performer list behind Michael Norman, the reigning World champion in the 400 who ran 20.14 in the 200 as a senior at Vista Murrieta High in Murrieta in 2016.
Brendon See of Serra High in San Juan Capistrano and Cade Moran of Murrieta Mesa High in Murrieta ranked third and fourth in the discus.
See had a best of 203-10 during a junior season in which he won the state title and finished second in the Nike Outdoor Nationals.
Moran, who is now at the University of Michigan, had a best of 207-4 and finished second to See in the state championships after previously defeating his rival to win the Arcadia Invitational and the Mt. San Antonio College Relays.
Cathedral High of Los Angeles earned a No. 3 ranking in the 1,600 relay.
The Phantoms’ best time of 3:13.87, which they ran in winning the state title, ranked 11th on the yearly national list. But the foursome of freshman Antonio Walton and seniors Jake Preston, Ekene Onwaeze, and William Mullins scored a major victory when they won the Nike Outdoor Nationals by more than two seconds.
Double all-American: Dalia Frias, who is now a freshman at Duke, was one of two runners from the Southern Section who earned all-American honors for their individual performances during the 2022 track and field season.
As a senior at Mira Costa High in Manhattan Beach, Frias was ranked second in the two mile after winning the 3,200 meters in the Arcadia Invitational and running a personal best of 9:50.70 to win the two mile in the Brooks PR Invitational. She was also ranked fourth in the mile after running a state record of 4:35.06 in that event and finishing second in the 1,600 in the state championships.
Freshman Sadie Engelhardt of Ventura High ranked third in the mile after running a personal best of 4:35.16 to win the Arcadia Invitational, defeating Frias for the state title in the 1,600, and clocking 4:11.79 in the 1,500 to finish fifth in a heat of the Portland Track Festival High Performance Meet in which she ran against collegiate and post-collegiate runners.
Engelhardt’s bests in the 1,500 and mile were national freshman records and her 1,500 time was also a national age-15 best.
In another middle-distance event, Serra High of San Juan Capistrano ranked second in the girls’ 3,200-meter relay.
The team of junior Anastasia Snodgrass, sophomores Georgia Jeanneret and Brooke O’Brien, and senior Ashlee Gallegos ran a state record of 8:52.68 to finish second in the Nike Outdoor Nationals.
